

■M * . v 





































The Flashlight Detective Series 


; 5?By A. Conan 
-Doyle 


•p.- .... 



in )***/ 



JA/ J 1 



WJM v \ 



Famous Books by Famous Authors 


DOWN THE 
SLOPE 

By JAMES OTIS 

The hero of this story is a young boy 
who, in order to assist his mother, works 
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TEDDY 

By JAMES OTIS 

A captivating story of how Teddy, a village boy, helped to raise the 
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TELEGRAPH TOM’S VENTURE 

By JAMES OTIS 

A highly entertaining story of the adventures of a boy who assisted a 
United States officer of the law in working up a famous case. The nar- 
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the manner in which such officers do their work. 



MESSENGER NO. 48 

By JAMES OTIS 

Relates the experience of‘a faithful messenger boy in a large city, who in 
answering a call was the means of ferreting out a band of criminals who 
for years had baffled the police and detectives. The story tells of the many 
dangers and hardships these boys have to undergo, the important services 
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each, in currency, money order or stamps. 

M. A. Donohue & Co. 407 ' 429 cHic 4 b r,o street ’ 


MY FRIEND THE 
MURDERER 


Aim OTHER MYSTERIES AND AD VENTURES 


By A. CONAN DOYLE 


I 

AUTHOR OF "THE WHITE COMPANY, ” "THE FIRM OF GIRDLESTONEj'* 
‘‘MYSTERY OF CLOOMBER,” "MICAH CLARKE," "BEYOND THE CITY," 
"THE CAPTAIN OF THE POLESTAR," "THE SIGN OF THE FOUR," 

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CHICAGO: 

M. A. Donohue & Co* 


* 







MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 


“Number 43 is no better, Doctor,” said the 
headwarder in a slightly reproachful accent, 
looking in round the corner of my door. 

“Confound 43!” I responded from behind 
the pages of the Australian Sketcher . 

“And 61 says his tubes are paining him. 
Couldn’t you do anything for him?” 

“He’s a walking drug shop,” I said. “He 
has the whole British pharmacopoeia inside 
him. I believe his tubes are as sound as yours 
are.” 

“Then there’s 7 and 108, they are chronic, ” 
continued the warder, glancing down a blue: 
"slip of paper. “And 28 knocked off work 
yesterday — said lifting things gave him ' a 
stitch in the side. I want you to have a look 
at him, if you don’t mind, Doctor. There’s 
3 1, too — him that killed John Adamson in 


4 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


the Corinthian brig — he’s been carrying on 
awf^i in the night, shrieking and yelling, he 
has, and no stopping him neither.” 

“All right, I’ll have a look at him after- 
wards,” I said, tossing my paper carelessly 
aside, and pouring myself out a cup of coffee. 
“Nothing else to report, I suppose, warder?” 

The official protruded his head a little fur- 
ther into the room. “Beg pardon, Doctor,” 
he said, in a confidential tone, “but I notice 
as 82 has a bit of a cold, and it would be a 
good excuse for you to visit him and have 
a chat, maybe,” 

The cup of coffee was arrested half-way t© 
my lips as I stared in amazement at the 
man’s serious face. 

“An excuse?” I said. “An excuse? What 
the deuce are you talking about, McPherson? 
You see me trudging about all day at my 
practice, when I’m looking after the prisoners, 
and coming back every night as tired as a 
dog, and you talk about finding an excuse 
for doing more work.” 

“You’d like it. Doctor,” said Wardex' 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


5 


McPherson, insinuating one of his shoulders 
into the room. “That man’s story’s worth 
listening to if you could get him to tell it, 
though he’s not what you’d call free in his 
speech. Maybe you don’t know who 82 is?” 

“No, I don’t, and I don’t care either,” I 
answered, in the conviction that some local 
ruffian was about to be foisted upon me as a 
celebrity. 

“He’s Maloney,” said the warder, “him 
that turned Queen’s evidence after the mur- 
ders at Bluemansdyke.” 

“You don’t say so?” I ejaculated, laying 
down my cup in astonishment. I had heard 
of this ghastly series of murders, and read an 
account of them in a London magazine long 
before setting foot in the colony. I remem- 
bered that the atrocities committed had thrown 
the Burke and Hare crimes completely into 
the shade, and that one of the most villainous 
of the gang had saved his own skin by be- 
traying his companions. “Are you sure?” I 
asked. 

“Oh yes, it’s him right enough. Just you 


.... ■ . 


6 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


draw him out a bit, and he’ll astonish you. 
He’s a man to know, is Maloney; that’s to 
say, in moderation;” and the head grinned, 
bobbed and disappeared, leaving me to finish 
my breakfast and ruminate over what I had 
heard. 

The surgeonship of an Australian prison is 
not an enviable position. It may be endurable 
in Melbourne or Sydney, but the little town 
of Perth has few attractions to recommend it, 
and those few had been long exhausted. The 
climate was detestable, and the society far 
from congenial. Sheep and cattle were the 
staple support of the community; and their 
prices, breeding and diseases the principal 
topic of conversation. Now as I, being an 
outsider, possessed neither the one nor the 
other, and was utterly callous to the new 
“dip” and the “ rot” and other kindred topics, 
I found myself in a state of mental isolation, 
and was ready to hail anything which might 
relieve the monotony of my existence. Ma- 
loney, the murderer, had at least some dis- 
tinctiveness and individuality in his character, 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 7 

and might act as a tonic to a mind sick of 
the commonplaces of existence. I determined 
that I should follow the warder’s advice, and 
take the excuse for making his acquaintance. 
When, therefore, I went upon my usual ma- 
tutinal round, I turned the lock of the door 
which bore the convict’s number upon it, and 
walked into the cell. 

The man was lying jn a heap upon his* 
rough bed as I entered, but, uncoiling his 
long limbs, he started up and stared at me 
with an insolent look of defiance on his face 
which augured badly for our interview. He 
had a pale, set face, with sandy hair and a 
steely-blue eye, with something feline in its 
expression. His frame was tall and muscular, 
though there was a curious bend in his 
shoulders, which almost amounted to a de- 
formity. An ordinary observer meeting him 
in the street might have put him down as a 
well-developed man, fairly handsome, and of 
studious habits- — even in the hideous uniform 
of the rottenest convict establishment he im- 
parted a certain refinement to his carriage 


8 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


which marked him out among the inferiof 
ruffians around him. 

“I’m not on the sick-list,” he said, gruffly. 
There was something in the hard, rasping 
voice which dispelled all softer allusions, and 
made me realize that I was face to face with 
the man of the Lena Valley and Bluemans- 
dyke, the bloodiest bushranger that ever 
stuck up a farm or cut the throats of its 
occupants. 

“ I know you’re not,” I answered. “Ward- 
er McPherson told me you had a cold, 
though, and I thought I’d look in and see 
you.” 

“Blast Warder McPherson, and blast you, 
too!” yelled the convict in a paroxysm of 
rage, “Oh, that’s right,” he added, in a 
quieter voice; “hurry away; report me to 
the governor, do! Get me another six months 
or so — that’s your game.” 

“I’m not going to report you,” I said. 

“Eight square feet of ground,” he went on, 
disregarding my protest, and evidently work- 
ing himself into a fury again. “Eight square 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


9 


feet, and I can’t have that without being 
talked to and stared at, and — oh, blast the 
whole crew of you!” and he raised his two 
clenched hands above his head and shook 
them in passionate invective. 

“You’ve got a curious idea of hospitality,” 
I remarked, determined not to lose my tem- 
per, and saying ‘ almost the first thing that 
came to my tongue. 

To my surprise the words had an extraor- 
dinary effect upon him. He seemed com- 
pletely staggered at my assuming the propo- 
sition for which he had been so fiercely 
contending — namely, that the room in which 
we stood was his own. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said; “I didn’t 
mean to be rude. Won’t you take a seat?’ 1 
and he motioned towards a rough trestle, 
which formed the headpiece of his couch. 

I sat down, rather astonished at the sudden 
change. I don’t know that I liked Maloney 
better under his new aspect. The murderer 
had, it is true, disappeared for the nonce, but 
there was something in the smooth tones and 


IO MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 

obsequious manner which powerfuly sug- 
gested the witness of the Queen, who had 
stood up and sworn away the lives of his 
companions in crime. 

“ How’s your chest?” I asked, putting on 
my professional air. 

“Come, drop it, Doctor, drop it!” he an- 
swered, showing a row of white teeth as he 
resumed his seat upon the side of the bed. 
“ It wasn’t anxiety after my precious health 
that brought you along here; that story won’t 
wash at all. You came to have a look at 
Wolf Tone Maloney, forger, murderer, Syd- 
ney-slider, ranger and Government peach. 
That’s about my figure, ain’t it? There it 
is, plain and straight; there’s nothing mean 
about me.” 

He paused as if he expected me to say 
something; but as I remained silent, he re- 
peated once or twice, “There’s nothing mean 
about me. And why shouldn’t I?” he sud- 
denly yelled, his eyes gleaming and his 
whole satanic nature reasserting itself. “We 
were bound to swing, one and all, and they 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER I } 

were none the worse if I saved myself by 
turning against them. Every man for him^ 
self, say I, and the devil take the luckiest. 
You haven’t a plug of tobacco, Doctor, have 
you?” 

He tore at the piece of “Barrett’s” which 
I handed him as ravenously as a wild beast. 
It seemed to have the effect of soothing his 
nerves, for he settled himself down in the 
bed, and reassumed his former deprecating 
manner. 

“You wouldn’t like it yourself, you know, 
Doctor,” he said; “it’s enough to make any 
man a little queer in his temper. I’m in for 
six months this time for assault, and very 
sorry I shall be to go out again, I can tell 
you. My mind’s at ease in here; but when 
I’m outside, what with the Government, and 
what with Tattooed Tom of Hawkesbury, 
there’s no chance of a quiet life.” 

“Who is he?” I asked. 

“He’s the brother of John Grimthorpe; the 
same that was condemned on my evidence, 
and an infernal scamp he was, too! Spawn 


12 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


of the devil, both of them ! This tattooed one 
is a murderous ruffian, and he swore to have 
my blood after that trial. It’s seven years 
ago, and he’s following me yet; I know he 
is, though he lies low and keeps dark. He 
came up to me in Ballarat in ’75; you can 
see on the back of my hand here where the 
bullet clipped me. He tried again in ’76 at 
Port Philip, but I got the drop on him and 
wounded him badly. He knifed me in ‘79, 
though, in a bar at Adelaide, and that made 
our account about level. He’s loafing round 
again now, and he’ll let daylight into me — 
unless — unless by some extraordinary chance 
some one does as much for him.” And Ma- 
loney gave a very ugly smile. 

“I don’t complain of him so much,” he 
continued. “ Looking at it in his way, no 
doubt it is a sort of family matter that can 
hardly be neglected. It’s the Government 
that fetches me. When I think of what I’ve 
done for this country, and then of what this 
country has done for me, it makes me fairly 
wiM — clean drives me off my head. There’s 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 1 3 

no gratitude nor common decency left, Doc- 
tor!” 

He brooded over his wrongs fora few min- 
utes, and then proceeded to lay them before 
me in detail. 

“ Here’s nine men,” he said; “ they’ve been 
murdering and killing for a matter of three 
years, and maybe a life a week wouldn’t 
more than average the work that they’ve 
done. The Government catches them and 
the Government tries them, but they can’t 
convict; and why? — because the witnesses 
have all had their throats cut, and the whole 
job’s been very neatly done. What happens 
then? Up comes a citizen called Wolf Tone 
Maloney; he says, ‘The country needs me, 
and here I am.’ And with that he gives his 
evidence, convicts the lot, and enables the 
beaks to hang them. That’s what I did. 
There’s nothing mean about me. And now 
what does the country do in return ? Dogs 
me, sir, spies on me, watches me night and 
day, turns against the very man that worked 
so hard for it. There’s something mean 


I 4 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


about that, anyway. I didn’t expect them to 
knight me, nor to make me Colonial Secre- 
tary; but, damn it, I did expect that they 
would let me alone!” 

“Well,” I remonstrated, “if you choose to 
break laws and assault people, you can’t ex- 
pect it to be looked over on account of former 
services.” 

“I don’t refer to my present imprisonment, 
sir,” said Maloney, with dignity. “It’s the 
life I’ve been leading since that cursed trial 
that takes the soul out of me. Just you sit 
there on that trestle, and I’ll tell you all about 
it; and then look me in the face and^tell me 
that I’ve been treated fair by the police.” 

I shall endeavor to transcribe the expe- 
riences of the convict in his own words, a& 
far as I can remember them, preserving his 
curious perversion of right and wrong. I can 
answer for the truth of his facts, whatever 
may be said for his deductions from them. 
Months afterwards, Inspector H. Hann, 
formerly governor of the jail at Dunedin, 
showed me entries in his ledger which cor * 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 1 5 

roborated every statement. Maloney reeled 
the story off in a dull, monotonous voice, 
with his head sunk upon his breast and his 
hands between his knees. The glitter of his 
serpent-like eyes was the only sign of the 
emotions which were stirred up by the recol- 
lection of the events which he narrated. 

You’ve read of Bluemansdyke (he began, 
with some pride in his tone). We made it hot 
while it lasted; but they ran us to earth at 
last, and a trap called Braxton, with a 
damned Yankee, took the lot of us. That 
was in New Zealand, of course, and they took 
us down to Dunedin, and there they were 
convicted and hanged. One and all they 
put up their hands in the dock, and cursed me 
till your blood would have run cold to hear 
them, which was scurvy treatment, seeing 
that we had all been pals together; but they 
were a blackguard lot, and thought only of 
themselves. I think it is as well that tfyey 
w'*re hung. 

They took me back to Dunedin jail, and 


1 6 MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 

clapped me into the old cell. The only differ, 
ence they made was, that I had no work to 
do, and was well fed. I stood this for a week 
or two, until one day the governor was mak- 
ing his round, and I put the matter to him. 

“How’s this?” I said. u My conditions 
were a free pardon, and you’re keeping me 
here against the law?” 

He gave a sort of a smile. “Should you 
like very much to go out?” he asked. 

“So much,” said I, “that, unless you open 
that door, I’ll have an action against you for 
illegal detention.” 

He seemed a bit astonished by my resolu- 
tion. “You’re very anxious to meet your 
death,” he said. 

“What d’ye mean?” I asked. 

“Come here, and you’ll know what I 
mean,” he answered. And he led me down 
the passage to a window that overlooked the 
door of the prison. “Look at that!” said 
he. 

I looked out, and there were a dosen or so 
rough-looking fellows standing outside iu the 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER I *J 

Street, some of them smoking, some playifig 
cards on the pavement. When they saw me 
they gave a yell, and crowded round the 
door, shaking their fists and hooting. 

“They wait for you, watch and watch 
about,” said the governor. “They’re the 
executive of the vigilance committee. How- 
ever, since you are determined to go, I can’t 
stop you.” 

“D’ye calFthis a civilized land,” I cried, 
“and let a man be murdered in cold blood 
in open daylight?” 

When I said this the governor and the 
warder and every fool in the place grinned, 
as if a man’s life was a rare good joke. 

“You’ve got the law on your side,” says 
the governor; “so we won’t detain you any 
longer. Show him out, warder.” 

He’d have done it, too, the black-hearted 
villain, if I hadn’t begged and prayed and 
offered to pay for my board and lodging, 
which is more than any prisoner ever did be- 
fore me. tie let me stay on those conditions; 
and for three months I was caged tip there 


1 8 MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 

with every larrikin in the township clamoring 
at the other side of the wall. That was pretty 
treatment for a man that had served his 
country ! 

At last, one morning, up came the gover- 
nor again. 

“Well, Maloney,” he said, “how long are 
you going to honor us with your society?” 

I could have put a knife into his cursed 
body, and would, too, if we had been alone 
in the bush ; but I had to smile, and smooth 
him and flatter, for I feared that he might 
nave me sent out. 

“You’re an" infernal rascal, ”he said; those 
were his very words to a man that had helped 
him all he knew how. “I don’t want any 
rough justice here* though; and I think I see 
my way to getting you out of Dunedin.” 

“I’ll never forget you, governor,” said I* 
and, by God, I never will. 

“I don’t want your thanks nor your grati- 
tude,” he answered; “it’s not for your sake 
that I do it, but simply to keep order in the 
town. There’s a steamer starts from the West 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


*9 


Quay to Melbourne to-morrow, and we’ll get 
you aboard it. She is advertised at five in 
the morning, so have yourself in readiness.” 

I packed up the few things I had, and was 
smuggled out by a back door just before day- 
break. I hurried down, took my ticket under 
the name of Isaac Smith, and got safely 
aboard the Melbourne boat. I remembered 
hearing her screw grinding into the water as 
the warps were cast loose, and looking back 
at the lights of Dunedin, as I leaned upon 
the bulwarks, with the pleasant thought that 
I was leaving them behind me forever. It 
seemed to me that a new world was before 
me, and that all my troubles had been cast 
ail. I went down below and had some coffee, 
and came up again feeling better than I had 
done since the morning that I woke to find 
that cursed Irishman that took me standing 
over me with a six-shooter. 

Day had dawned by that time, and we 
were steaming along by the coast, well out of 
sight of Dunedin. I loafed about for a couple 
of hours, and when the sun got well up some 


20 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


of the other passengers came on deck and 
joined me. One of them, a little, perky sort 
of fellow, took a good long look at me, and 
then came over and began talking. 

“Mining, I suppose?” says he. 

“Yes,” I says. 

“Made your pile?” he asks. 

“Pretty fair,” says I. 

“ I was at it myself,” he says ; “ I worked at 
the Nelson fields for three months, and spent 
all 1 made in buying a salted claim which 
busted up the second day. I went at it again, 
though, and struck it rich; but when thte-gold 
wagon was going down to the settlements, 
it was stuck up by those cursed rangers, and 
not a red cent left.” 

“That was a bad job,” I says. 

“Broke me — mined me clean. Never 
mind, I’ve seen them all hanged for it; that 
makes it easier to bear. There’s only one 
left — the villain that gave the evidence. I’d 
die happy if I could come across him. There 
are two things I have to do if I meet him.” 

“What’s that?” says I, carelessly. 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


21 


“I’ve got co ask him where the money lies 
*—they never had time to make away with it, 
and it’s cached somewhere in the mountains 
— and then I’ve got to stretch his neck for 
him, and send his soul down to join the men 
that he betrayed.” 

It seemed to me that I knew something 
about that cache , and I felt like laughing; 
but he was watching me, and- it struck me 
that he had a nasty, vindictive kind of mind. 

“I’m going up on the bridge,” I said, for 
he was not a man whose acquaintance I cared 
much about making. 

He wouldn’t hear of my leaving him, 
though. “We’re both miners,” he says, 
“and we’re pals for the voyage. Come down 
to the bar. I’m not too poor to shout.” 

I couldn’t refuse him well, and we went 
down together; and that was the beginning 
of the trouble. What harm was I doing any 
one on the ship? All I asked for was a 
quiet life, leaving others alone, and getting 
left alone myself. No man could ask fairer 
than that. And now just you listen to what 
cape of it. 


22 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


We were passing the front of the ladies 
cabins, on our way to the saloon, when out 
comes a servant lass — a freckled currency 
she-devil — with a baby in her arms. We 
were brushing past her, when she gave a 
scream like a railway whistle, and nearly 
dropped the kid. My nerves gave a sort ol 
a jump when I heard that scream, but I turned 
and begged her pardon, letting on that I 
thought I might have trod on her foot. 1 
knew the game was up, though, when I saw 
her white face, and her leaning against the 
door and pointing. 

“ It’s him!” she cried; “it’s him! I saw 
him in the court-house. Oh, don’t let him 
hurt the baby!” 

“Who is it?” asks the steward and half a 
dozen others in a breath. 

“It’s him — Maloney — Maloney, the mur- 
derer — oh, take him away — take him away!” 

I don’t rightly remember what happened 
just at that moment. The furniture and me 
seemed to get kind of mixed, and -there was 
cursing, and smashing, and some one shout- 


MY FRIEND TH 2 ? MURDERS J£ 23 

ing for his gold, and a general stamp round. 
When I got steadied a bit, I found somebody’s 
hand in my mouth. From what I gathered 
afterwards, I conclude that it belonged to that 
little man with the vicious way of talking. 
He got some of it out again, but that was be- 
cause the others were choking me. A poor 
chap can get no fair play in this world when 
once he is down — still I think he will remem- 
ber me till the day of his death — longer, I 
hope. 

They dragged me out into the poop and 
held a damned court-martial — on me , mind 
you; me , that had thrown over my pals in 
order to serve them. What were they to do 
with me? Some said this, some said that; 
but it ended by the captain deciding to send 
me ashore. The ship stopped, they lowered 
a boat, and I was hoisted in, the whole gang 
of them hooting at me from over the bul- 
warks. I saw the man I spoke of tying up 
his hand though, and I felt that things might 
be worse. 

I changed my opinion before we got to 


H 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


the land. I had reckoned on the shore being 
deserted, and that I might make my way in- 
land ; but the ship had stopped too near the 
Heads, and a dozen beach-combers and such 
like had come down to the water’s edge, and 
were staring at us, wondering what the boat 
was after. When we got to the edge of the 
surf the coxswain hailed them, and after sing- 
ing out who I was, he and his men threw me 
into the water. You may well look surprised 
—neck and crop into ten feet of water, with 
shark as thick as green parrots in the bush, 
and I heard then^ laughing as I floundered to 
the shore. 

I soon saw it was a worse job than ever. 
As I came scrambling out through the weeds, 
I was collared by a big chap with a velveteen 
coat, and half a dozen others got round me and 
held me fast. Most of them looked simple 
fellows enough, and I was not afraid of them; 
but there was one in a cabbage-tree hat that 
had a very nasty expression on his face, and 
the big man seemed to be chummy with him. 

They dragged me up the beach, and then 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 2J 

they let go their hold of me and stood round 
in a circle. 

“Well, mate,’’ says the man with the hat, 
“we’ve been looking out for you some time 
jn these parts.” 

“And very good of you, too,” I answers. 

“None of your jaw,” says he. “Come, 
boys, what shall it be — hanging,drowning or 
shooting? Look sharp!” 

This looked a bit too like business. “ No, 
you don’t!” I said. “I’ve got Government 
protection, and it’ll be murder.” 

“That’s what they call it,” answered the 
one in the velveteen coat as cheery as a pip- 
ing crow. 

“And you’re going to murder me for being 
a ranger?” 

“Ranger be damned!” said the man. 
“We’re going to hang you for peaching 
against your pals; and that’s an end of the 
palaver.” 

They slung a rope round my neck and 
dragged me up to the edge of the bush. There 
was some big she-oaks and blue-gums, and 


z6 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


they pitched on one of these for the wicked 
deed. They ran the rope over a branch, tied 
my hands, and told me to say my prayers. It 
seemed as if it was all up; but Providence 
interfered to save me. It sounds nice enough 
sitting here and telling about it, sir; but it 
was sick work to stand with nothing but the 
beach in front of you, and the long, white 
line of surf, with the steamer in the distance, 
and a set of bloody-minded villains round you 
thirsting for your life. 

I never thought I’d owe anything good to 
the police; but they saved me that time. A 
troop of them were riding from Hawkes Point 
Station to Dunedin, and hearing that some- 
thing was up, they came down through the 
bush, and interrupted the proceedings. I’ve 
heard some bands in my time, Doctor, but I 
never heard music like the jingle of those 
traps’ spurs and harness as they galloped out 
on to the open. They tried to hang me even 
then, but the police were too quick for them ; 
and the man with the hat got one over the 
head with the flat of a sword. I was clapped 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 2 7 

on to horse, and before evening I found 
myself in my old quarters in the city jail. 

The governor wasn’t to be done, though. 
He was determined to get rid of me, and I 
was equally anxious to see the last of him. 
He waited a week or so until the excitement 
had begun to die away, and then he smuggled 
me aboard a three-masted schooner bound, to 
Sydney with tallow and hides. 

We got fair away to sea without a hitch, 
and things began to look a bit more rosy. 
I made sure that I had seen the last of the 
prison, anyway. The crew had a sort of an 
idea who I was, and if there’d been any 
rough weather, they’d have hove me over- 
board like enough; for they were a rough, 
ignorant lot, and had a notion that I brought 
bad fuck to the ship. We had a good passage, 
however, and I was landed safe and sound 
upon Sydney Quay. 

Now just you listen to what happened next. 
You’d have thought they would have been 
sick of ill-using me and following me by this 
time — wouldn’t you, now? Well, just you 


28 MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 

listen. It seems that a cursed steamer started 
from Dunedin to Sydney on the very day we 
left, and got in before us, bringing news that 
I was coming. Blessed if they hadn’t called 
a meeting — a regular mass meeting — at the 
docks to discuss about it, and I marched right 
into it when I landed. They didn’t take 
long about arresting me, and I listened to 
alLthe speeches and resolutions. If I’d been 
a prince there couldn’t have been more ex- 
citement. The end of it all was that they 
agreed that it wasn’t right that New Zealand 
should be allowed to foist her criminals upon 
her neighbors, and that I was to be sent back 
again by the next boat. So they posted me 
off again as if I was a damned parcel ; and 
after another eight hundred mile journey I 
found myself back for the third time moving 
in the place that I started from. 

By this time I had begun to think that I 
was going to spend the rest of my existence 
traveling about from one port to another. 
Every man’s hand seemed turned against 
me. and there was no peace or quiet in any 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


2 9 


direction. I was sick of it by the time I had 
come back; and if I could have taken to the 
bush I’d have done it, and chanced it with 
my old pals. They were too quick for me, 
though, and kept me under lock and key : 
but I managed, in spite of them, to negotiate 
that cache I told you of, and sewed the gold 
up in my belt. I spent another month in jail, 
and then they slipped me aboard a bark that 
was bound for England. 

This time the crew never knew who I was, 
but the captain had a pretty good idea,though 
he didn’t let on to me that he had any sus- 
picions. I guessed from the first that the man 
was a villain. We had a fair passage, except 
a gale or two off the Cape ; and I began to 
feel like a free man'when I saw the blue loom 
of the old country, and the saucy little pilot- 
boat from Falmouth dancing towards us over 
the waves. We ran down the Channel, and 
before we reached Gravesend I had agreed 
with the pilot that he should take me ashore 
with him when he left. It was at this time 
that the captain showed me that I was right 


30 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


in thinking him a meddling, disagreeable 
man. I got my things packed, such as they 
were, and left him talking earnestly to the 
pilot, while I went below for my breakfast. 
When I came up again we were fairly into 
the mouth of the river, and the boat in which 
I was to have gone ashore had left us. The 
skipper said the pilot had forgotten me; but 
that was too thin ; and I began to fear that 
all my old troubles were going to commence 
once more. 

It was not long before my suspicions were 
confirmed. A boat darted out from the side 
of the river, and a tall cove with a long black 
beard came .aboard. I heard him ask the 
mate whether they didn’t need a mud-pilot to 
take them up the reaches, but it seemed to me 
that he was a man who would know a deal 
more about handcuffs than he did about steel- 
ing, so I kept awaf from him. He came 
across the deck, however, and made some 
remark to me, taking a good look at me the 
while. I don’t like inquisitive people at any 
time, but an inquisitive stranger with glue 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 3 1 

about the roots of his beard is the worst of 
all to stand, especially under the circum- 
stances. I began to feel that it was time for 
me to go. 

I soon got a chance, and made good use of 
it. A big collier came athwart the bows of 
our steamer, and we had to slacken down to 
dead slow. There was a barge astern, and 
I slipped down by a rope and was into the 
barge before any one had missed me. Of 
course I had to leave my luggage behind me, 
but I had the belt with the nuggets round my 
waist, and the chance of shaking the police 
off my track was worth more than a couple 
of boxes. It was clear to me now that the 
pilot had been a traitor, as well as the captain, 
and had set the detectives after me. I often 
wish I could drop across those two men 
again. 

I hung about the barge all day as she 
drifted down the stream. There was one 

1 

man in her, but she was a big, ugly craft, and 
his hands were too full for much looking 
about. Towards evening, when it got a bit 


3 2 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


dusky, I struck out for the shore, and found 
myself in a sort of marsh place, a good many 
miles to the east of London. I was soaking 
wet and half dead with hunger, but I trudged 
into the town, got a new rig-out at a slop- 
shop, and after having some supper, engaged 
a bed at the quietest lodgings I could find. 

I woke pretty early — a habit you pick up 
in the bush- — and lucky for me that I did so. 
The very first thing I saw when I took a look 
through a chink in the shutter was one of 
those infernal policemen standing right oppo- 
site, and staring up at the windows. He 
hadn’t epaulets nor a sword, like our traps, 
but for all that there was a sort of family like- 
ness, and the same busybody expression. 
Whether they’d followed me all the time, or 
whether the woman that let me the bed didn’t 
like the looks of me, is more than I have ever 
been able to find out. He came across as I 
was watching him, and noted down the 
address of the house in a book. I was afraid 
that he was going to ring at the bell, but I 
suppose his orders were simply to keep an 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 33 

eye on me, for after another good look at the 
windows he moved on down the street. 

I saw that my only chance was to act at 
once. I threw on ray clothes, opened the 
window softly, and, after making sure that 
there was nobody about, dropped out onto the 
ground and made off as hard as I could run. 
I traveled a matter of two or three miles, 
when my wind gave out; and as I saw a big 
building with people going in and out, I went 
in too,and found that it was a railway station. 
A train was just going off for Dover to meet 
the French boat, so I took a ticket and jumped 
into a third-class carriage. 

There were a couple of other chaps in the 
carriage, innocent looking young beggars, 
both of them. They began speaking about 
this and that, while I sat quiet in the corner 
and listened. Then they started on England 
and foreign countries, and such like. Look 
ye now, Doctor, this is a fact. One of them 
begins jawing about the justice of England’s 
laws. “It’s all fair and above board,” says 
he; u there ain’t any secret police, nor spying 


34 my friend the murderer 

like they have abroad,” and a lot more of 
the same sort of wash. Rather rough on me, 
wasn’t it, listening to the damned young fool, 
with the police following me about like my 
shadow? 

I got to Paris right enough, and there I 
changed some of my gold, and for a few days 
I imagined I’d shaken them off, and began 
to think of settling down for a bit of a rest. 
I needed it by that time, for I was looking 
more like a ghost than a man. You’ve never 
had the police after you, I suppose? Well, 
you needn’t look offended, I didn’t mean any 
harm. If ever you had you’d know that it 
wastes a man away like a sheep with the rot. 

I went to the opera one night and took a 
box, for I was very flush. I was coming out 
between the acts when I met a fellow loung- 
ing along in the passage. The light fell on his 
face, and I saw it was the mud-pilot that had 
boarded us in the Thames. His beard was 
gone, but I recognized the man at a glance, 
for I’ve a good memory for faces. 

I tell you, Doctor, I felt desperate for a 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


35 


moment. I could have knifed him if we' had 
been alone, but he knew me well enough 
never to give me the chance. It was more 
than I could stand any longer, so I went right 
up to him and drew him aside, where we’d 
be free from all the loungers and theater- 
goers. 

“How long are you going to keep it up?” 
I asked him. 

He seemed a bit flustered for a moment, 
but then he saw there was no use beating 
about the bush, so he answered straight — 

“Until you go back to Australia,” he said. 

“Don’t you know,” I said, “that I have 
served the Government and got a free par- 
don ?” 

He grinned all over his ugly face when I 
said this. 

“We know all about you, Maloney,” he 
answered. “If you want a quiet life, just you 
go back where you came from. If you stay 
here, you’re a marked man ; and when you 
are found tripping it’ll be a lifer for you, at 
the least. Free trade’s a tine thing, but the 


3 6 MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 

market’s too full of men like you fot to 
need to import any!” 

It seemed to me that there was something 
in what he said, though he had a nasty way 
of putting it. For some days back I’d been 
feeling a sort of homesick. The ways of the* 
people weren’t my ways. They stared at me 
in the street ; and if I dropped into a bar, 
they’d stop talking and edge away a bit, as 
if I was a wild beast. I’d sooner have had a 
pint of old Stringybark, too, than a bucketful 
of their rotgut liquors. There was too much 
damned propriety. What was the use of hav- 
ing money if you couldn’t dress as you liked, 
nor bust it properly? There was no sympathy 
for a man if he shot about a little when he 
was half-over. I’ve seen a man dropped at 
Nelson many a time with less row than they’d 
make Over a broken window-pane. The 
thing was slow, and I was sick of it. 

“You want me to go back?” I said. 

“I’ve my orders to stick fast to you until 
you do,” he answered. 

“Well,” I said, “I don’t care if I do. All 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERED 37 

I bargain is that you keep your mouth shut, 
and don’t let on who I am, so that I may 
have a fair start when I get there.’ 5 

He agreed to this, and we went over to 
Southampton the very next day, where he 
saw me safely off once more. I took a pas- 
sage round to Adelaide, where no one was 
likely to know me; and there I settled, right 
under the nose of the police. I’ve been there 
ever since, leading a quiet life, but for little 
difficulties like the one I’m in for now, and 
for that devil, Tattooed Tom of Hawkesbury. 
I don’t know what made me tell you all this, 
Doctor, unless it is that being kind of lonely 
makes a man inclined to jaw when he gets a 
chance. Just you take warning from me, 
though. Never put yourself out to serve your 
country; for your country will do precious 
little for you. Just you let them look after 
their own affairs; and if they find a difficulty 
in hanging a set of scoundrels, never mind 
chipping in, but let them alone to do as best 
they can. Maybe they’ll remember how they 
treated me after I’m dead, and be sorry for 


38 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


neglecting me. I was rude to you when you 
came in, and swore a trifle promiscuous; but 
don't mind me, it’s only my way. You’ll al- 
low, though, that I have cause to be a bit 
touchy now and again when I think of all 
that’s passed. You’re not going, are you? 
Well, if you must, you must; but I hope you 
will look me up at odd times when you are 
going your round. Oh, I say, you’ve left 
the balance of that cake of tobacco behind 
you, haven’t you? No; it’s in your pocket — 
that’s all right. Thank ye, Doctor, you’re a 
good sort, and as quick at a hint as any man 
I've met. 

A couple of months after narrating his ex- 
periences, Wolf Tone Maloney finished his 
term, and was released. For a long time I 
neither saw 7 him nor heard of him; and he 
had almost slipped from my memory, until I 
was reminded, in a somew 7 hat tragic manner, 
of his existence. I had been attending a pa- 
tient some distance off in the country, and 
v^as riding back, guiding my tired horse 
among the boulders which strewed the path- 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 39 

way, and endeavoring to see my way through 
the gathering darkness, when I came sud- 
denly upon a little wayside inn. As I walked 
my horse up towards the door, intending to 
make sure of my bearings before proceeding 
further, I heard the sound of a violent alter- 
cation within the little bar. There seemed 
to be a chorus of expostulation or remon- 
strance, above which two powerful voices 
rang out loud and angry. As I listened, there 
was a momentary hush, two pistol shots 
sounded almost simultaneously, and, with a 
crash, the door burst open, and a pair of dark 
figures • staggered out into the moonlight. 
They struggled for a moment in a deadly 
wrestle, and then went down together among 
the loose stones. I had sprung off my horse, 
and, with the help of half a dozen rough fel- 
lows from the bar, dragged them away from 
one another. 

A glance waS sufficient to convince me that 
one of them was dying fast. He was a thick- 
set, burly fellow, with a determined cast of 
countenance. The blood was welling from a 


4 ° 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


deep stab in his throat, and it was evident 
that an important artery had been divided. I 
turned away from him in despair, and walked 
over to where his antagonist was lying. He 
was shot through the lungs, but managed to 
raise himself upon his hand as I approached, 
and peered anxiously up into my face. To 
surprise I saw before me the haggard 
features and flaxen hair of my prison ac- 
quaintance, Maloney. 

“Ah, Doctor!” he said, recognizing me. 

How is he? Will he die?” 

He asked the question so earnestly that I 
imagined he had softened at the last moment, 
and feared to leave the world with another 
homicide upon his conscience. Truth, how- 
ever, compelled me to shake my head mourn- 
fully, and to intimate that the wound would 
prove a mortal one. 

Maloney gave a wild cry of triumph, which 
brought the blood welling out from between 
his lips. “Here, boys,” he gasped to the 
little group around him. “There’s money in 
my inside pocket. Damn the expense ! Drinks 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 


41 


round. There’s nothing mean about me. I’d 
drink with you, but I’m going. Give the 
Doc. my share, for he’s as good — ” Here his 
head fell back with a thud, his eye glazed, 
and the soul of Wolf Tone Maloney, forger, 
convict, ranger, murderer and Government 
peach, drifted away into the Great Unknown. 

I cannot conclude without borrowing the 
account of the fatal quarrel which appeared 
in the columns of the West Australian Senti- 
nel. The curious will find it in the issue of 
the 4th of October, 1881: 

u Fatal Affray. — W. T. Maloney, a well- 
known citizen of New Montrose, and propri- 
etor of the Yellow Boy gambling saloon, has 
met with his death under rather painful cir- 
cumstances. Mr. Maloney was a man who 
had led a checkered existence, and whose 
past history is replete with interest. Some of 
our readers may recall the Lena Valley mur- 
ders, in which he figured as the principal 
criminal. It is conjectured that, during the 
seven months that he owned a bar in that 


42 MY FRIEND THE MURDERER 

region, from twenty to thirty travelers were 
hocussed and made away with. He suc- 
ceeded, however, in evading the vigilance of 
the officers of the law, and allied himself with 
the bushrangers of Bluemansdyke, whose 
heroic capture and subsequent execution are 
matters of history. Maloney extricated him- 
self from the fate which awaited him by turn- 
ing Queen’s evidence. He afterwards visited 
Europe, but returned to West Australia, where 
he has long played a prominent part in local 
matters. On Friday evening he encountered 
an old enemjq Thomas Grimthorpe, com- 
monly known as Tattooed Tom of Hawkes- 
bury. Shots were exchanged, and both men 
were badly wounded, only surviving a few 
minutes> Mr. Maloney had the reputation of ^ 
being not only the most wholesale murderer 
that ever lived, but also of having a finish and 
attention to detail in matters of evidence 
which has been unapproached by any Euro- 
pean criminal. Sic transit gloria mundiP ’ 


THE SILVER HATCHET* 

On the 3rd of December, 1861, Dr. Otto 
von Hopstein, Regius Professor of Compara** 
live Anatomy of the University of Buda-Pesth, 
and Curator of the Academical Museum, was 
foully and brutally murdered within a stone- 
throw of the entrance to the college quad- 
rangle. 

Besides the eminent position of the victim 
and his popularity amongst both students and 
towns-folk, there were other circumstances 
which excited public interest very strongly, 
and drew general attention throughout Aus- 
tria and Hungary to this murder. The Pesther 
Abendblatt of the following day had an 
article upon it, which may still be consulted 
by the curious, and from which I translate a 
few passages giving a succinct account of the 
circumstances under which the crime was 
committed, and the peculiar features in the 


44 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


case which puzzled the Hungarian police, 
“ It appears,” said that very excellent paper, 
“that Professor von Hopstein left the Univer- 
sity about half-past four in the afternoon, m 
order to meet the train which is due from Vi- 
enna at three minutes after five. He was ac- 
companied by his old and dear friend, Herr 
Wilhelm Schlessinger, sub-Curator of the Mu- 
seum and Privat-docent of Chemistry. The 
object of these two gentlemen in meeting this 
particular train was to receive the legacy be- 
queathed by Graf von Schulling to the Uni- 
versity of Buda-Pesth. It is well known that 
this unfortunate nobleman, whose tragic fate 
is still fresh in the recollection of the public, 
left his unique collection of mediaeval weap- 
ons, as well as several priceless black-letter 
editions, to enrich the already celebrated mu- 
seum of his Alma Mater. The worthy Pro- 
fessor was too much of an enthusiast in such 
matters to intrust the reception or care of this 
valuable legacy to any subordinate, and, with 
the assistance of Herr Schlessinger, he suc- 
ceeded in removing the whole collection from 


THE SILVER HATCHET 4) 

the train, and stowing it away in a light cart 
which had been sent by the University 
authorities. Most of the books and more 
fragile articles were packed in cases of pine- 
wood, but many of the weapons were simply 
done round ’with straw, so that considerable 
labor was involved in moving them all. The 
Professor was so nervous, however, lest any 
of them should be injured, that he refused 
to allow any of the railway employes ( Eisen - 
bahn-diencr) to assist. Every article was 
carried across the platform by Herr Schles- 
singer, and handed to Professor von Hopstein 
in the cart, who packed it away. When every- 
thing was in, the two gentlemen, still faithful 
to their charge, drove back to the University, 
the Professor being in excellent spirits, and 
not a little proud of the physical exertion 
which he had shown himself capable of. He 
made some joking allusion to it to Reinmaul, 
the janitor, who, with his friend Schiffer, a 
Bohemian Jew, met the cart on its return and 
unloaded the contents. Leaving his curiosities 
safe in the store-room, and locking the door. 


46 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


the Processor handed the key to his sub- 
curator, and, bidding every one good evening, 
departed in the direction of his lodgings. 
Schlessinger took a last look to reassure him* 
self that all was right, and also went off, 
leaving Reinmaul and his friend Schiffer 
smoking in the janitor’s lodge. 

“At eleven o’clock, about an hour and a 
half after Von Hopstein’s departure, a soldier 
of the 14th regiment of Jager, passing the 
front of the University on his way to barracks, 
came upon the lifeless body of the Professor 
lying a little way from the side of the road. 
He had fallen upon his face, with both hands 
stretched out. # His head was literally split 
in two halves by a tremendous blow, which, 
it is conjectured, must have been struck from 
behind, there remaining a peaceful smile upon 
the old man’s face, as if he had been still 
dwelling upon his new archaeological acquisi- 
tion when death had overtaken him. There 
is no other mark of violence upon the body, 
excetv v bruire over the left natella, caused 
pjooaoiy by the fall. The most mysterious 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


47 


part of the affair is that the Professor’s purse, 
containing forty-three gulden, and his valuable 
watch, have been untouched. Robbery can- 
not, therefore, have been the incentive to the 
deed, unless the assassins were disturbed be- 
fore they could complete their work. 

“The idea is negatived by the fact that the 
body must have lain at least an hour before 
any one discovered it! The whole affair is 
wrapped in mystery. Dr. Langemann, the 
eminent medico-jurist, has pronounced that 
the wound is such as might have been inflicted 
by a heavy sword-bayonet wielded by a pow- 
erful arm. The police are extremely reticent 
upon the subject, and it is suspected that they 
are in possession of a clew which may lead 
to important results.” 

Thus far the Pesther Abendblatt . The re- 
searches of the police failed, however, to 
throw the least glimmer of light upon the 
matter. There was absolutely no trace of 
the murderer, nor could any amount of in- 
genuity invent any reason which could have 
induced any one to commit the dreadful deed. 


4 8 


TMM SILVER HATCMJsT 


The deceased Professor was a mm so 
wrapped in his own studies and pursuits that 
he lived apart from the world, and had cer- 
tainly never raised the slightest animosity in 
any human breast. It must have been some 
fiend, some savage, who loved blood for its 
own sake, who struck that merciless blow. 

Though the officials were unable to come 
to any conclusions upon the matter, popular 
suspicion was not long in pitching upon a 
scapegoat. In the first published accounts 
of the murder the name of one Schiffer had 
been mentioned as having remained with the 
janitor after the Professor’s departure. This 
man was a Jew, and Jews have never been 
popular in Hungary. A cry w T as at once 
raised for Schiffer’s arrest; but as there was 
not the slightest grain of evidence against 
him, the authorities very properly refused to 
consent to so arbitrary a proceeding. Rein- 
maul, who was an old and most respected 
citizen, declared solemnly that Schiffer was 
with him until the startled cry of the soldier 
had caused them both to run out to the scene 


THE SILVER -1ATCHET 


49 


of the tragedy. No one ever dreamed of im- 
plicating Reinmaul in such a matter; but still 
it was rumored that his ancient and well- 
known friendship for Schiffer might have 
induced him to tell a falsehood in order to 
screen him. Popular feeling ran very high 
upon the subject, and there seemed a danger 
of Schiffer’s being mobbed in the street, when 
an incident occurred which threw a very dif^ 
ferent light upon the matter. 

On the morning of the 12th of December, 
just nine days after the mysterious murder of 
the Professor, Schiffer, the Bohemian Jew, 
was found lying in the northwestern corner 
of the Grand Platz stone dead, and so muti- 
lated that he was hardly recognizable. His 
head was cloven open in very much the same 
way as that of Von Hopstein, and his body 
exhibited numerous deep gashes, as if the 
murderer had been so carried away and trans- 
ported with fury that he had continued to 
hack the lifeless body. Snow had fallen 
heavily the day before, and was lying at least 
ti foot deep all over the square ; some had 


50 THE SILVER HATCHET 

fallen during the night, too, as was evidenced 
by a thin layer lying like a winding-sheet 
over the murdered man. It was hoped at first 
that this circumstance might assist in giving 
a clew by enabling the footsteps of the assassin 
to be traced; but the crime had been com- 
mitted, unfortunately, in a place much 
frequented during the day, and there were in- 
numerable tracks in every direction. Besides, 
the newly-fallen snow had blurred the foot- 
steps to such an extent that it would have 
been impossible to draw trustworthy evidence 
from them. 

In this case there was exactly the same 
impenetrable mystery and absence of motive 
which had characterized the murder of Pro- 
fessor von Hopstein. In the dead man’s pocket 
there was found a note-book containing a con- 
siderable sum in gold and several very valu- 
able bills, but no attempt had been made to 
rifle him. Supposing that any one to whom 
he had lent money (and this was the first idea 
which occurred to the police) had taken this 
means of evading his debt, it was hardly com 


THE SILVER HATCHET 5 1 

ceivable that he would have left such a valu- 
able spoil untouched. Schiffer lodged with 
a widow named Gruga, at 49 Marie Theresa 
Strasse, and the evidence of his landlady and 
her children showed that he had remained shut 
up in his room the whole of the preceding 
day in a state of deep dejection, caused by 
the suspicion which the populace had fastened 
upon him. She had heard him go out about 
eleven o’clock at night for his last and fatal 
walk, and as he had a latch-key she had gone 
to bed without waiting for him. His object 
in choosing such a late hour for a ramble ob- 
viously was that he did not consider himself 
safe if recognized in the streets. 

The occurrence of this second murder so 

<(0 

shortly after the first threw not only the town 
of Buda-Pesth,but the whole of Hungary, into 
a terrible state of excitement and even of ter- 
ror. Vague dangers seemed to hang over the 
head of every man. The only parallel to this 
intense feeling was to be found in our own 
country at the time of the Williams murders 
described by De Quincey. There were so 


5 2 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


many resemblances between the cases of Von 
Hopstein and of Schiffer that no one could 
doubt that there existed a connection between 
the two. The absence of object and of rob- 
bery, the utter want of any clew to the assas- 
sin, and, lastly, the ghastly nature of the 
wounds, evidently inflicted by the same or 
a similar weapon, all pointed in one direction . 
Things were in this state when the incidents 
which I am now about to relate occurred, 
and in order to make them intelligible I must 
lead up to them from a fresh point of depar- 
ture. 

Otto von Schlegel was a younger son of 
the old Silesian family of that name. His 
father had originally destined him for the 
army, but at the advice of his teachers, who 
saw the surprising talent of the youth, had 
sent him to the University of Buda-Pesth to 
be educated in medicine. Here young Schle- 
gel carried everything before him, and prom- 
ised to be one of the most brilliant graduates 
turned out for many a year. Though a hard 
reader, he was no bookworm, but an active, 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


53 


powerful young fellow, full of animal spirits 
and vivacity, and extremely popular among 
his fellow-students. 

The New Year examinations were at hand, 
and Schlegel was working hard — so hard that 
even the strange murders in the town, and 
the general excitement in men’s minds, failed 
to turn his thoughts from his studies. Upon 
Christmas Eve, when every house was illumi- 
nated, and the roar of drinking songs came 
from the Bierkeller in. the Student-quartier, 
he refused the many invitations to roystering 
suppers which were showered upon him, and 
went off with his books under his arm to the 
rooms of Leopold Strauss, to work with him 
into the small hours of the morning. 

Strauss and Schlegel were bosom friends. 
They were both Silesians, and had known 
each other from boyhood. Their affection 
had become proverbial in the University. 
Strauss was almost as distinguished a student 
as Schlegel, and there had been many a 
tough struggle for academic honors between 
the two fellow-countrymen, which had only 


54 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


served to strengthen their friendship by a 
bond of mutual respect. Schlegel admired 
the dogged pluck and never-failing good 
temper of his old playmate; while the latter 
considered Schlegel, with his many talents 
and brilliant versatile, the most accomplished 
of mortals. 

The friends were sliil working together, 
the one reading from a volume on anatomy* 
the other holding a skull and marking off the 
various parts mentioned in the text, when 
the deep-toned bell of St. Gregory’s church 
struck the hour of midnight. 

“Hark to that!” said Schlegel, snapping 
up the book and stretching out his long legs 
towards the cheery fire. “Why, it’s Christ- 
mas morning, old friend! May it not be the 
last that we spend together!” 

“May we have passed all these confounded 
examinations before another one comes!” 
answered Strauss. “But see here, Otto, one 
bottle of wine will not be amiss. I have laid 
one up on purpose;” and with a smile on his 
honest, South German face, he pulled out a 


THE SILVER HATCHET 55 

long-necked bottle of Rhenish from amongst 
a pile of books and bones in the corner. 

“ It is a night to be comfortable indoors,” 
said Otto von Schlegel, looking out at the 
snowy landscape, “for ’tis bleak and bitter 
enough outside. Good health, Leopold!” 

“ Lebe hock,!” replied his companion. “It 
is a comfort indeed to forget sphenoid bones 
and ethmoid bones, if it be but for a moment. 
And what is the news of the corps, Otto? 
Has Graube fought the Swabian?” 

“They fight to-morrow,” said Von Schle- 
gel. “ I fear that our man will lose his beauty, 
for he is short in the arm. Yet activity and 
skill may do much for him. They say his 
hanging guard is perfection.” 

‘‘And what else is the news amongst the 
students?” asked Strauss. 

“They talk, I believe, of nothing but the 
murders. But I have worked hard of late, 
as you know, and hear little of the gossip.” 

“Have you had time,” inquired Strauss, 
“to look over the books and the weapons 
which our dear old Professor was so con- 


56 THE SILVER HATCHET 

cerned about the very day he met his death? 
They say they are well worth a visit.” 

“I saw them to-day,” said Schlegel, light- 
ing his pipe. “Reinmaul, the janitor, showed 
me over the store-room, and I helped to label 
many of them from the original catalogue of 
Graf Schulling’s museum. As far as we can 
see, there is but one article missing of all 
the collection.” 

“One missing!” exclaimed Strauss. “That 
would grieve old Von Hopstein’s ghost. Is 
it anything of value?” 

“It is described as an antique hatchet, with 
a head of steel and a handle of chased silver. 
We have applied to the railway company, 
and no doubt it will be found.” 

“I trust so,” echoed Strauss; and the con- 
versation drifted into other channels. The 
fire was burning low and the bottle of Rhen- 
ish was empty before the two friends rose 
from their chairs, and Von Schlegel prepared 
to depart. 

“Ugh! It’s a bitter night!” he said, stand- 
ing on the doorstep and folding his cloak 


THE SILVER HATCHES'! 57 

round him. “Why, Leopold, you have your 
cap on. You are not going out, are you?” 

“Yes, I am coming with you,” said Strauss, 
shutting the door behind him. “I feel 
heavy,” he continued, taking his friend’s 
arm, and walking down the street with him. 
“I think a walk as far as your lodgings, in 
the crisp, frosty air, is just the thing to set 
me right.” 

The two students went down Stephen 
Strasse together and across Julien Platz, talk- 
ing on a variety of topics. As they passed the 
corner of the Grand Platz, however, where 
Schiffer had been found dead, the conversa- 
tion turned naturally upon the murder. 

“That’s where they found him,” remarked 
Von Schlegel, pointing to the fatal spot. 

“Perhaps the murderer is near us now,” 
said Strauss. “Let us hasten on.” 

They both turned to go, when Von Schlegel 
gave a sudden cry of pain and stooped down. 

“Something has cut through my boot!” he 
cried; and feeling about with his hand in the 
snow, he pulled out a small, glistening battle- 


58 THE SILVER HATCHET 

axe, made apparently entirely of metal. It 
had been lying with the blade turned slightly 
upwards, so as to cut the foot of the student 
when he trod upon it. 

“The weapon of the murderer !” he ejacu- 
lated. 

“The silver hatchet from the museum!” 
cried Srauss in the same breath. 

There could be no doubt that it was both 
the one and the other. There could not be 
two such curious weapons, and the character 
of the wounds was j'ust such as would be in- 
flicted by a similar instrument. The murderer 
had evidently thrown it aside after commit- 
ting the dreadful deed, and it had lain con- 
cealed in the snow some twenty metres from 
the spot ever since. It was extraordinary 
that of all the people who had passed and re- 
passed none had discovered it; but the snow 
was deep, and it was a little off the beaten 
track. 

“What are we to do with it?” said Von 
Schlegel, holding it in his hand. He shud- 
dered as he noticed by the light of the moon 


THE SILVER HATCHET 59 

that the head of it was all dabbled with dark 
brown stains. 

“Take it to the Commissary of Police,” 
suggested Strauss. 

“He’ll be in bed now. Still, I think you 
are right. But it is nearly four o’clock. I 
will wait until morning, and take it round 
before breakfast. Meanwhile, I must carry 
it with me to my lodgings.” 

“That is the best plan,” said his friend; 
and the two walked on together talking of the 
remarkable find which they had made. When 
they came to Schlegel’s door, Strauss said 
good-by, refusing an invitation to go in, and 
walked briskly down the street in the direc- 
tion of his own lodgings. 

Schlegel was stooping down putting the 
key into the lock, when a strange change 
came over him. He trembled violently, and 
dropped the key from his quivering fingers. 
His right hand closed convulsively round 
the handle of the silver hatchet, and his eye 
followed the retreating figure of his friend 
with a vindictive glare. In spite of the cold- 


60 THE SILVER HATCHET 

ness of tb'S night the perspiration streamed 
down his face. For a moment he seemed to 
struggle with himself, holding his hand up to 
his throat as if he were suffocating. Then, 
with crouching body and rapid, noiseless 
steps, he crept after his late companion. 

Strauss was plodding sturdily along through 
the snow, humming snatches of a student 
song, and little dreaming of the dark figure 
which pursued him. At the Grand Platz it 
was forty yards behind him ; at the Julien 
Platz it was but twenty; in Stephen Strasse 
it was ten, and gaining on him with panther- 
like rapidity. Already it was almost within 
arm’s length of the unsuspecting man, and 
the hatchet glittered coldly in the moonlight, 
when some slight noise must have reached 
Strauss’s ears, for he faced suddenly round 
upon his pursuer. He started and uttered 
an exclamation as his eye met the white, set 
face, with flashing eyes and clenched teeth, 
which seemed to be suspended in the air 
behind him. 

“What, Otto!” he exclaimed, recognizing 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


6l 


his friend. “Art thou ill? You look pale. 
Come with me to my — Ah! hold, you mad- 
man, hold! Drop that axe! Drop it, I say, 
or by heaven I’ll choke you!” 

Von Schlegel had thrown himself upon him 
with a wild cry and uplifted weapon ; but the 
student was stout-hearted and resolute. He 
rushed inside the sweep of the hatchet and 
caught his assailant round the waist, narrowly 
escaping a blow which would have cloven 
his head. The two staggered for a moment 
in a deadly wrestle, Schlegel endeavoring to 
shorten his weapon ; but Strauss with a des- 
perate wrench managed to bring him to the 
ground, and they rolled together in the snow, 
Strauss clinging to the other’s right arm and 
shouting frantically for assistance* It was as 
well that he did so, for Schlegel would cer- 
tainly have succeeded in freeing his arm had 
it not been for the arrival of two stalwart 
gendarmes, attracted by the uproar. Even 
then the three of them found it difficult to 
overcome the maniacal strength of Schlegel, 
and they were utterly unable to wrench the 


62 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


silver hatchet from his grasp. One of the 
gendarmes, however, had a coil of rope round 
his waist, with which he rapidly secured the 
student’s arms to his sides. In this way, 
half pushed, half dragged, he was conveyed, 
in spite of furious cries and frenzied struggles, 
to the central police station. 

Strauss assisted in coercing his former 
friend, and accompanied the police to the 
station; protesting loudly at the same time 
against any unnecessary violence, and giving 
it as his opinion that a lunatic asylum would 
be a more fitting place for the prisoner. The 
events of the last half-hour had been so sud- 
den and inexplicable that he felt quite dazed 
himself. What did it all mean ? It was certain 
that his old friend from boyhood had at- 
tempted to murder him, and had nearly suc- 
ceeded. Was Von Schlegel then the murderer 
of Professor von Hopstein and of the Bohe- 
mian Jew? Strauss felt that it was impossible, 
for the Jew was not even known to him, and 
the Professor had been his especial favorite. 
He followed mechanically to the police sta- 
tion, lost in grief and amazement. 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


^3 


Inspector Baumgarten, one of the most 
energetic and best known of the police 
officials, was on duty in the absence of the 
Commissary. He was a wiry, little, active 
man, quiet and retiring in his habits, but pos- 
sessed of great sagacity and a vigilance which 
never relaxed. Now, though he had had a 
six hours’ vigil, he sat as erect as ever, with 
his pen behind his ear, at his official desk, 
while his friend, Sub-inspector Winkel, snored 
in a chair at the side of the stove. Even the 
inspector’s usually immovable features be- 
trayed surprise, however, when the door was 
flung open and Von Schlegel was dragged 
in with pale face and disordered clothes, the 
silver hatchet still grasped firmly in his hand. 
Still more surprised was he when Strauss and 
the gendarmes gave their account, which was 
duly entered in the official register. 

“Young man, young man,” said Inspector 
Baumgarten, laying down his pen and fixing 
his eyes sternly upon the prisoner, “this is 
pretty work for Christmas morning ; why have 
you done this thing?” 


6 4 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


“God knows!” cried Von Schlegel, covei 
ing his face with his hands and dropping th& 
hatchet. A change had come over him, his 
fury and excitement were gone, and he 
seemed utterly prostrated with grief. 

“You have rendered yourself liable to a 
strong suspicion of having committed the 
other murders which have disgraced our 
city.” 

“No, no, indeed!” said Von Schlegel, 
earnestly. “God forbid!” 

“At least you are guilty of attempting the 
life of Herr Leopold Strauss.” 

“The dearest friend I have in the world,” 
groaned the student. “Oh, how could I! 
How could I!” 

“His being your friend makes your crime 
ten times more heinous,” said the inspector, 
severely. “Remove him for the remainder of 
the night to the — But steady! Who comes 
here ?” 

The door was pushed open, and a man 
came into the room, so haggard and care- 
worn that he looked more like a ghost than a 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


6 5 


human being. He tottered as he walked, 
and had to clutch at the backs of the chairs 
as he approached the inspector’s desk. It 
was hard to recognize in this miserable-look- 
ing object the once cheerful and rubicund 
sub-curator of the museum and privat-docent 
of chemistry, Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger. 
The practiced eye of Baumgarten, however, 
was not to be baffled by any change. 

“Good morning, mein herr,” he said ; “you 
are up early. No doubt the reason is that you 
have heard that one of your students, Von 
Schlegel, is arrested for attempting the life of 
Leopold Strauss?” 

“No; I have come for myself,” said Schles- 
singer, speaking huskily, and putting his 
hand up to his throat. “I have come to ease 
my soul of the weight of a great sin, though, 
God knows, an unmeditated one. It was I 
who — But merciful heavens! — there it is— 
the horrid thing! Oh, that I had never seen 
it!” 

He shrank back in a paroxysm of terror, 
glaring at the silver hatchet where it lay upon 


66 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


the floor, and pointing at it with his emaciated 
hand. 

“There it lies!” he yelled. “Look at it! It* 
has come to condemn me. See that brown 
rust on it! Do you know what that is? That 
is the blood of my dearest, best friend, Pro- 
fessor von Hopstein. I saw it gush over the 
very handle as I drove the blade through his 
brain. Mein Gott, I see it now!” 

“Sub-inspector Winkel,” said Baumgar- 
ten, endeavoring to preserve his official aus- 
terity, “you will arrest this man, charged on 
his own confession with the murder of the late 
Professor. I also deliver into your hands 
Von Schlegel here, charged with murderous 
assault upon Herr Strauss. You will also 
keep this hatchet” — here he picked it from the 
floor — “which has apparently been used for 
both crimes.” 

Wilhelm Schlessinger had been leaning 
against the table, with a face of ashy pale- 
ness. As the inspector ceased speaking, he 
looked up excitedly. 

“What did you say?” he cried. “Von 


The silver hatchet 


67 


Schlegel attacks Strauss! The two dearest 
friends in the college! I slay my old master! 
It is magic, I say ; it is a charm! There is 
a spell upon us! It is — ah, I have it! It is 
that hatchet — that thrice accursed hatchet!” 
and he pointed convulsively at the weapon 
which Inspector Baumgarten still held in his 
hand. 

The inspector smiled contemptuously. 

“Restrain yourself, mein herr,” he said. 
“You do but make your case worse by such 
wild excuses for the wicked deed you confess 
to. Magic and charms are not known in the 
legal vocabulary, as my friend Winkel will 
assure you.” 

“I know not,” remarked his sub-inspector, 
shrugging his broad shoulders. “There are 
many strange things in the world. Who 
knows but that — ” 

“What!” roared Inspector Baumgarten, 
furiously. “You would undertake to contra- 
dict me! You would set up your opinion! 
You would be the champion of these accursed 
murderers! Fool, miserable fool, your hour 


68 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


has come!” and rushing at the astounded 
Winkel, he dealt a blow at him with the 
silver hatchet which would certainly have 
justified his last assertion had it not been that, 
in his fury, he overlooked the lowness of the 
rafters above his head. The blade of the 
hatchet struck one of these, and remained 
there quivering, while the handle was splin- 
tered into a thousand pieces. 

“What have I done?” gasped Baumgarten, 
falling back into his chair. “What have I 
done?” 

“You have proved Herr Schlessinger’s 
words to be correct,” said Von Schlegel, 
stepping forward, for the astonished police- 
men had let go their grasp of him. “That 
is what you have done. Against reason, 
science and everything else though it be, there 
is a charm at work. There must be! Strauss, 
old boy, you know I would not, in my right 
senses, hurt one hair of your head. And you, 
Schlessinger, we both know you loved the 
old man who is dead. And you, Inspector 
Baumgarten, you would not willingly have 
struck your friend, the sub-inspector?” 


THE SILVER HATCHET 69 

“Not for the whole world,” groaned the 
inspector, covering his face with his hands. 

“Then is it not clear? But now, thank 
heaven, the accursed thing is broken, and 
can never do harm again. But see, what is 
that?” 

Right in the center of the room was lying 
a thin brown cylinder of parchment. One 
glance at the fragments of the handle of the 
weapon showed that it had been hollow. This 
roll of paper had apparently been hidden 
away inside the metal case thus formed, hav- 
ing been introduced through a small hole, 
which had been afterwards soldered up. Von 
Schlegel opened the document. The writing 
upon it was almost illegible from age ; but as 
far as they could make out it stood thus, in 
mediaeval German: 

“Diese Waffe benutzte Max von Erlidhin- 
gen um Joanna Bodeck zu ermorden, deshalb 
beschuldige Ich, Johann Bodeck, mittelstder 
macht welche mir als mitglied des Concils 
des rothen Kreuzes verliehan wurde, dieselbe 
mit dieser unthat. Mag sie anderen den- 


7o 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


selben schmerz verursachen den sie mir vcr- 
ursacht hat. Mag Jede hand die sie ergreift 
mit dem blut eines freundes gerothet sein. 

“ * Immer libel — niemals gut, 

Gerothet mit des freundes blut. ,M 

Which may be roughly translated: 

“This weapon was used by Max von Er- 
lichingen for the murder of Joanna Bodeck. 
Therefore do I, Johann Bodeck, accurse it 
by the power which has been bequeathed to 
me as one of the Council of the Rosy Cross. 
May it deal to others the grief which it has 
dealt to me! May every hand that grasps it 
be reddened in the blood of a friend! 

“ ‘ Ever evil, never good, 

Reddened with a loved one’s blood.’ ” 

There was a dead silence in the room when 
Von Schlegel had finished spelling out this 
strange document. As he put it down Strauss 
laid his hand affectionately upon his arm. 

“No such proof in needed by me, old 
friend,-’ he said. “At the very moment that 
you struck at me I forgave you in my heart. 


THE SILVER HATCHET 7 1 

I well know that if the poor Professor were 
in the room he would say as much to Herr 
Wilhelm Schlessinger.” 

“Gentlemen,” remarked the inspector,! 
standing up and resuming his official tonesj 
“this affair, strange as it is, must be treated 
according to rule and precedent. Sub- 
inspector Winkel, as your superior officer, I 
command you to arrest me upon a charge of 
murderously assaulting you. .You will commit 
me to prison for the night, together with Herr 
von Schlegel and Herr Wilhelm Schles- 
singer. We shall take our trial at the coming 
sitting of the judges. In the meantime take 
care of that piece of evidence” — pointing to 
the piece of parchment — “and, while I am 
away, devote your time and energy to utiliz- 
ing the clew you have obtained in discover- 
ing who it was who slew Herr Schiffer, the 
Bohemian Jew.” 

The one missing link in the chain of evi- 
dence was soon supplied. On the 28th of 
December the wife of Reinmaul the janitor, 
coming into the bedroom after a short ab- 


72 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


sence, found her husband hanging lifeless 
from a hook in the wall. He had tied a long 
bolster-case round his neck and stood upon 
a chair in order to commit the fatal deed. On 
the table was a note in which he confessed to 
the murder of Schiffer the Jew, adding that 
the deceased had been his oldest friend, and 
that he had slain him without premeditation, 
in obedience to some uncontrollable impulse. 
Remorse and grief, he said, had driven him 
to self-destruction ; and he wound up his con- 
fession by commending his soul to the mercy 
of heaven. 

The trial which ensued was one of the 
strangest which ever occurred in the whole 
history of jurisprudence. It was in vain that 
the prosecuting counsel urged the improba- 
bility of the explanation offered by the pris- 
oners, and deprecated the introduction of 
such an element as magic into a nineteenth- 
century law-court. The chain of facts was 
too strong, and the prisoners were unani- 
mously acquitted. “This silver hatchet,” re- 
marked the judge in his summing up, “has 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


73 


hung untouched upon the wall in the mansion 
of the Graf von Sculling for nearly two hun- 
dred years. The shocking manner in which 
he met his death at the hands of his favorite 
house steward is still fresh in your recollec- 
tion. It has come out in evidence that, a few 
days before the murder, the steward had over- 
hauled the old weapons and cleane d them. 
In doing this he must have touched the 
handle of this hatchet. Immediately after- 
ward he slew his master, whom he had served 
faithfully for twenty years. The weapon then 
came, in conformity with the Count’s will, to 
Buda'-Pesth, where, at the station, Herr 
Wilhelm Schlessinger grasped it, and, within 
two hours, used it against the person of the 
deceased Professor. The next man whom we 
find touching it is the janitor Reinmaul, who 
helped to remove the weapons from the cart 
to the store-room. At the first opportunity 
he buried it in the body of his friend Schiffer. 
We then have the attempted murder of Strauss 
by Schlegel, and of Winkel by Inspector 
Baumgarten, all immediately following the 


74 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


taking of the hatchet into the hand. Lastly , 
comes the providential discovery of the extra- 
ordinary document which has been read to 
you by the clerk of the court. I invite your 
most careful consideration, gentlemen of the 
jury, to this chain of facts, knowing that 
you will find a verdict according to your con- 
sciences without fear and without favor.” 

Perhaps the most interesting piece of evi- 
dence to the English reader, though it found 
few supporters among the Hungarian audi- 
ence, was that of Dr. Langemann, the emi- 
nent medico-jurist, who has written text-books 
upon metallurgy and toxicology. He said: 

U I am not so sure, gentlemen, that there 
is need to fall back upon necromancy or the 
black art for an explanation of what has 
occurred. What I say is merely a hypothesis, 
without proof of any sort, but, in a case so 
extraordina^ every suggestion may be of 
value. The Rosicrucians, to whom allusion 
is made in this paper, were the most profound 
chemists of the early Middle Ages, and in- 
cluded the principal alchemists whose names 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


75 


hay # descended to us. Much as chemistry 
has advanced, there are some points in which 
the ancients were ahead of us, and in none 
more so than in the manufacture of poisons of 
subtle and deadly action. This man Bodeck, 
as one of the elders of the Rosicrucians, 
possessed, no doubt, the recipe of many such 
mixtures, some of which, like the aqua tofana 
of the Medicis, would poison by penetrating 
through the pores of the skin. It is conceiv- 
able that the handle of this silver hatchet has 
been anointed by some preparation which is 
a diffusible poison, having the effect upon the 
human body of bringing on sudden and acute 
attacks of homicidal mania. In such attacks 
it is well known that the madman’s rage is 
turned against those whom he loved best when 
sane. I have, as I remarked before, no proof 
to support me in my theory, and simply put 
it forward for what it is worth.” 

With this extract from the speech of the 
learned and ingenious professor, we may 
close the account of this famous trial. 

The broken pieces of the silver hatchet 


7 6 


THE SILVER HATCHET 


were thrown into a deep pond, a clever poodle 
being employed to carry them in his mouth, 
as no one would touch them for fear some of 
the infection might still 'hang about them. 
The piece of parchment was preserved in the 
museum of the University. As to Strauss and 
Schlegel, Winkel and Baumgarten, they con- 
tinued the best of friends and are so still for 
all I know to the contrary. Schlessinger 
became surgeon of a cavalry regiment, and 
was shot at the battle of Sadowa five years 
later, while rescuing the wounded under a 
heavy fire. By his last injunctions his little 
patrimony was to be sold to erect a marble 
obelisk over the grave of Professor von Hop- 
stein. 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE. 


A TRUE COLONIAL STORY. 

Broadhurst’s store was closed, but the 
little back room looked very comfortable that 
night. The fire cast a ruddy glow on ceiling 
and walls, reflecting itself cheerily on the 
polished flasks and shot-guns which adorned 
them. Yet a gloom rested on the two men 
who sat at either side of the hearth, which 
neither the fire nor the black bottle upon the 
table could alleviate. 

“Twelve o’clock,” said old Torn,’ the 
storeman, glancing up at the wooden time- 
piece which had come out with him in ’42J 
“It’s a queer thing, George, they haven’t 
come.” 

“It’s a dirty night,” said his companion, 
reaching out his arm for a plug of tobacco. 
“The Wawirra’s in flood, maybe; or maybe 
77 


78 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 

their horses is broke down; or they’ve put it 
off, perhaps. Great Lord, how it thunders! 
Pass us a coal, Tom.” 

He spoke in a tone which was meant to ap- 
pear easy, but with a painful thrill in it which 
was not lost upon his mate. He glanced 
uneasily at him from under his grizzled eye- 
brows. 

“You think it’s all right, George?” he 
said, after a pause. 

“ Think what’s all right?” 

“Why, that the lads are safe.” 

“Safe! Of course they’re safe. What the 
devil is to harm them?” 

“Oh, nothing; nothing, to be sure,” said 
old Tom. “You see, George, since the old 
woman died, Maurice has been all to me; 
and it makes me kinder anxious. It’s a week 
since they started from the mine, and you’d 
ha’ thought they’d be here now. But it’s 
nothing unusual, I s’pose, nothing at all. Just 
my darned folly.” 

“What’s to harm them?” repeated George 
Hutton again, arguing to convince himself 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


79 


rather than his comrade. “It’s a straight 
road from the diggin’s to Rathurst, and then 
through the hills past Bluemansdyke, and 
over the Wawirra by the ford, and so down 
to Trafalgar by the bush track. There’s 
nothin’ deadly in all that, is there? My son 
Allan’s as dear to me as Maurice can be to 
you, mate,” he continued; “but they know 
the ford well, and there’s no other bad place. 
They’ll be here to-morrow night, certain.” 

“Please God they may!” said Broadhurst; 
and the two men lapsed into silence for some 
time, moodily staring into the glow of the 
fire, and pulling at their short clays. 

It was, indeed, as Hutton had said, a dirty 
night. The wind was howling down 
through the gorges of the western mountains, 
and whirling and eddying among the streets 
of Trafalgar; whistling through the chinks in 
the rough wood cabins, and tearing away the 
frail shingles which formed the roofs. The 
streets were deserted, save for one or two 
stragglers from the drinking shanties, who 
wrapped their cloaks around them and stag- 


80 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 

gered home through the wind and rain to-, 
wards their own cabins. 

The silence was broken by Broadhurst, who 
was evidently still ill at ease. 

“Say, George,” he said, “what’s become 
of Josiah Mapleton?” 

“Went to the diggin’s.” 

“Ay; but he sent word he was coming 
back.” 

“But he never came.” 

“An’ what’s become of Jos Humphrey?” 
he resumed, after a pause. 

“He went diggm’, too.” 

“Well, did he come back?” 

“Drop it, Broadhurst; drop it, I say,” 
said Hutton, springing to his feet and pacing 
up and down the narrow room. “You’re 
trying to make a coward of me! You know 
the men must have gone up country prospect- 
in’ or farmin’, maybe. What is it to us where 
they went? You don’t think I have a register 
of every man in the colony, as Inspector 
Burton has of the lags.” 

“Sit down, George, ana listen,” said old 


./ 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


8l 


Tom. “There’s something queer about that 
road; something I don’t understand, and 
don’t like. Maybe you remember how Ma- 
loney, the one-eyed scoundrel, made his 
money in the early mining days. He’d a 
half-way drinking shanty on the main road 
up on a kind of bluff, where the Lena comes 
down from the hills. You’ve heard, George, 
how they found a sort of wooden slide from 
his little back room down to the river; an’ 
how it came out that man after man had had 
his drink doctored, and been shot down that 
into eternity, like a bale of goods. No one 
will ever know how many were done away 
with there. They were all supposed to be 
farmin’ and prospectin’, and the like, till 
their bodies were picked out of the rapids. 
It’s no use mincing matters, George; we’ll 
have the troopers along to the diggin’s if those 
lads don’t turn up by to-morrow night.” 

“As you like, Tom,” said Hutton. 

“By the way, talking of Maloney — it’s a 
strange thing,” said Broadhurst, “that Jack 
Haldane swears he saw a man as like Maloney 


82 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


with ten years added to him as could be. It 
was in the bush on Monday morning. Chance, 
I suppose; but you’d hardly think there could 
be two pair of shoulders in the world carry- 
ing such villainous mugs on the top of them.” 

“Jack Haldane’s a fool,” growled Hutton, 
throwing open the door and peering anxiously 
out into the darkness, while the wind played 
with his long, grizzled beard, and sent a train 
of glowing sparks from his pipe down the 
street. 

“A terrible night!” he said, as he turned 
back towards the fire. 

Yes, a wild, tempestuous night; a night 
for birds of darkness and for beasts of 
prey. A strange night for seven men to lie 
out in the gully at Bluemansdyke,with revol- 
vers in their hands, and the devil in their 
hearts. 

The sun was rising after the storm. A 
thick, heavy steam reeked up from the 
saturated ground, and hung like a pall over 
the*, flourishing town of Trafalgar. A bluish 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 83 

mist lay in wreaths over the wide track of 
bushland around, out of which the western 
mountains loomed like great islands in a sea 
of vapor. 

Something was wrong in the town. The 
most casual glance would have detected that. 
There was a shouting and a hurrying of feet. 
Doors were slammed and rude windows 
thrown open. A trooper of police came 
clattering down with his carbine unslung. It 
was past the time for Joe Buchan’s sawmill to 
commence work, but the great wheel was 
motionless, for the hands had not appeared. 

There was a surging, pushing crowd in the 
main street before old Tom Broadhurst’s 
bouse, and a mighty clattering of tongues. 
“What was it?” demanded the new-comers* 
panting and breathless. “Broadhurst has shot 
his mate.” “He has cut his own throat.” 
“He has struck gold in the clay floor of his 
kitchen.” “No; it was his son Maurice who 
had come home rich.” “Who had not come 
back at all.” “Whose horse had come back 
without him.” At last the truth had come 


84 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 

out: and there was the old sorrel horse in 
question whinnying and rubbing his neck 
against the familiar door of the stable, as if 
entreating entrance ; while two haggardjgray- 
haired men held him by either bridle and 
gazed blankly at his reeking sides. 

“God help me,” said old Tom Broadhurst; 
“it is as I feared!” 

“Cheer up, mate,” said Hutton, drawing 
his rough straw hat down over his brow. 
“There’s hope yet.” 

A sympathetic and encouraging murmur 
ran through the crowd. 

“ Horse ran away, likely.” 

“Or was stolen.” 

“Or he’s swum the Wawirra an’ been 
washed off,” suggested one Job’s comforter. 

“He ain’t got no marks of bruising,” said 
another, more hopeful. 

“Rider fallen off drunk, maybe,” said a 
bluff old sheep-farmer. “I kin remember,” 
he. continued, “coming into town ’bout this 
hour myself, with my head in my holster, an’ 
thinking I was a six-chambered revolver— 
mighty drunk I was.” 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 85 

“ Maurice had a good seat; he’d never be 
washed off.” 

“Not he.” 

“The,horse has a weal on its fore-quarter,” 
remarked another, more observant than the 
rest. 

“A blow from a whip, maybe.” 

‘It would be a darned hard one.” 

“Where’s Chicago Bill?” said some one; 
“he’ll know.” 

Thus invoked, a strange, gaunt figure 
stepped out in front of the crowd. He was 
an extremely tall and powerful man, with the 
red shirt and high boots of a miner. The 
shirt was thrown open, showing the sinewy 
throat and massive chest. His face was 
seamed and scarred with many a conflict, 
both with Nature and his brother man ; yet 
beneath his ruffianly exterior there lay some- 
thing of the quiet dignity of the gentleman. 
This man was a veteran gold-hunter; a real 
old California forty-niner, who had left the 
fields in disgust when private enterprise began 
to dwindle before the formation of huge in- 


86 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


corporated companies with their ponderous 
machinery. But the red clay with the little 
shining points had become to him as the very 
breath of his nostrils, and he had come half- 
way round the world to seek it once again. 

“ Here’s Chicago Bill,” he said; “what is 
it?” 

Bill was naturally regarded as an oracle, 
in virtue of his prowess and varied experience. 
Every eye was turned on him as Braxton, the 
young Irish trooper of constabulary, said, 
“What do you make of the horse, Bill?” 

The Yankee was in no hurry to commit 
himself. He surveyed the animal for some 
time with his shrewd little gra}^ eye. He bent 
and examined the girths ; then he felt the 
mane carefully. He stooped once more and 
examined the hoofs and then the quarters. 
His eye rested on the blue weal already men- 
tioned. This seemed to put him on a scent, 
for he gave a long, low whistle, and proceeded 
at once to examine the hair on either side of 
the saddle. He saw something conclusive 
apparently, for, with a sidelong glance under 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 87 

his shaggy eyebrows at the two old men be- 
side him, he turned and fell back among the 
crowd. 

“Well, what d’ye think?” cried a dozen 
voices. 

“A job for you,” said Bill, looking up at 
the young Irish trooper. 

“Why, what is it? What’s become of 
young Broadhurst?” 

“He’s done what better men has done 
afore. He has sunk a shaft for gold and 
panned out a coffin.” 

“Speak out, man! what have you seen?” 
cried a husky voice. 

“I’ve seen the graze of a bushranger’s bul- 
let on the horse’s quarterin’ I’ve seen a drop 
of the rider’s blood on the edge of the saddle 
• — Here, hold the old man up, boys; don’t 
let him drop. Give him a swig of brandy an’ 
lead him inside. Say,” he continued, in a 
whisper, gripping the trooper by the wrist, 
“mind, I’m in it. You an’ I play this hand 
together. I’m dead on sich varmin. We’ll do 
as they do in Nevada, strike while the iron 


88 THE GULX.Y OF BLUEMANSDYKE 

is hot. Get any men you can together* I 
s’pose you’re game to come yourself?” 

“Yes, I’ll come, ’’said young Braxton, with 
a quiet smile. 

The American looked at him approvingly. . 
He had learned in his wanderings that an 
Irishman who grows quieter when deeply 
stirred is a very dangerous specimen of the 
genus homo . 

“Good lad!” he muttered; and the two 
went down the street together towards the 
station-house, followed by half a dozen of the 
more resolute of the crowd. 

One word before we proceed with our 
story, or our chronicle rather, as every word 
of it is based upon fact. The colonial trooper 
of fifteen or twenty years ago was a very dif- 
ferent man from his representative of to-day. 

Not that I would imply any slur upon the 
courage of the latter; but for reckless dare- 
devilry and knight-errantry the old constabu- 
lary has never been equaled. The reason is 
a simple one. Men of gentle blood, younger 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


sons and wild rakes who had outrun the con- 
stable, were sent off to Australia with some 
wild idea of making their fortunes. On arriv- 
ing they found Melbourne by no means the 
El Dorado they expected; they were unfit 
for any employment, their money was soon 
dissipated, and they unerringly gravitated into 
the mounted police. Thus a sort of colonial 
“Maison Rouge” became formed, where the 
lowest private had as much pride of birth and 
education as his officers. They were men 
who might have swayed the fate of empires, 
yet who squandered away their lives in many 
a lone, wild fight with native and bushranger, 
where nothing but a mouldering, blue-ragged 
skeleton was left to tell the tale. 

It was a glorious sunset. The whole sky 
was a blaze of flame, throwing a purple tint 
upon the mountains, and gilding the somber 
edges of the forest which spreads between 
Trafalgar and the river Wawirra. It stretched 
out, a primeval, unbroken wilderness, save 
at the one point where a rough track had 


pO THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKK 

been formed by the miners and their numerous 
camp-followers. This wound amid the great 
trunks in a zigzag direction, occasionally 
making a long detour to avoid some marshy 
hollow or especially dense clump of vegeta- 
tion. Often it could be hardly discerned from 
the ground around save by the scattered hoof- 
marks and an occasional rut. 

About fifteen miles from Trafalgar there 
stands a little knoll, well sheltered and over- 
looking the road. On this knoll a man was 
lying as the sun went down that Friday even- 
ing. He appeared to shun observation, for 
he had chosen that part in which the foliage 
was thickest; yet he seemed decidedly at 
his ease, as he lolled upon his back with his 
pipe between his teeth, and a broad hat down 
over his face. It was a face that it was well 
to cover in the presence of so peaceful a 
scene — a face pitted with the scars of an im- 
material smallpox. The forehead was broad 
and low ; one eye had apparently been gouged 
out, leaving a ghastly cavity ; the other was 
deep-set, cunning and vindictive. The mouth 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 9I 

was hard and cruel ; a rough beard covered 
the chin. It was the cut of face' which, seen 
in a lonely street, would instinctively make 
one shift the grasp of one’s stick from the 
knob end to the ferrule — the face of a bold 
and unscrupulous man. 

Some unpleasing thought seemed to occur 
to him, for he rose with a curse and knocked 
the ashes out of his pipe. “A darned fine 
thing,” he muttered, “that I should have to 
lie out like this I It was Barrett’s fault the 
job wasn’t a clean one, an’ now he picks me 
out to get the swamp-fever. If he’d shot the 
horse as I did the man, he wouldn’t need a 
watch on this side of the Wawirra. He always 
was a poor, white-livered cuss. Well,” he 
continued, picking up a gun which lay in 
the grass behind him, “there’s no use my 
waiting longer; they wouldn’t start during 
the night. Maybe the horse never got home, 
maybe they gave them up as drowned ; any- 
how it’s another man’s turn to-morrow, so I’ll 
just give them five minutes and then make 
tracks.” He sat down on the stump of a tree 


92 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 

as he spoke and hummed the verse of a song. 
A sudden thought seemed to strike him, for 
he plunged his hand into his pocket, and after 
some searching extracted a pack of playing 
cards wrapped in a piece of dirty brown 
paper. He gazed earnestly at their greasy 
faces for some time. Then he took a pin 
from his sleeve and pricked a small hole in 
the corner of each ace and knave. He 
chuckled as he shuffled them up, and replaced 
them in his pocket. “I’ll have my share of 
the swag,” he growled. “They’re sharp, but 
they’ll not spot that when the liquor is in 
them. By the Lord, here they are!” 

He had sprung to his feet and was bending 
to the ground, holding his breath as he 
listened. To the unpracticed ear all was as 
still as before — the hum of a passing insect, 
the chirp of a bird, the rustle of the leaves; 
but the bushranger rose with the air of a man 
who has satisfied himself. “Good-by to Blue- 
mansdyke,” said he; “I reckon it will be 
too hot to hold us for a time. That thunder- 
ing idiot! he’s spoilt as nice a lay as ever 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


was, an’ risked our necks into the bargain. 
I’ll see their number an’ who they are, 
though,” he continued; and, choosing a point 
where a rough thicket formed an effectual 
screen, he coiled himself up, and lay like 
some venomous snake, occasionally raising 
his head and peering between the trunks at 
the reddish streak which marked the Trafal- 
gar Road. 

There could be no question now as to the 
approach of a body of horsemen. By the 
time our friend was fairly ensconced in his 
hiding-place the sound of voices and the 
clatter of hoofs was distinctly audible, and in 
another moment a troop of 'mounted men 
came sweeping round the curve of the road. 
They were eleven all told, armed to the teeth, 
and evidently well on the alert. Two rode 
in front with rifles unslung, leisurely scanning 
every bush which might shelter an enemy. 
The main body kept about fifty yards behind 
them, while a solitary horseman brought up 
the rear. The ranger scanned them narrowly 
as they passed. He seemed to recognize most 


94 


THE GULLY - OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


of them. Some were his natural enemies, the 
troopers; the majority were miners who had 
volunteered to get rid of an evil which affected 
their interests so closely. They were a fine, - 
bronzed set of men, with a deliberate air about- 
them, as if they had come for a purpose and 
meant to attain it. As the last rider passed 
before his hiding-place the solitary w r atcher 
started and growled a curse in his beard. “I 
know his darned face,” he said, “it’s Bill 
Hanker, the man who got the drop on Long 
Nat Smeaton in Silver City in ’53; what the 
thunder brought him Here? I must be off by 
the back track, though, an’ let the boys know.” 
So saying, he picked up his gun, and with a 
scowl after the distant party, he crouched 
down and passed rapidly and silently out of 
sight into the very thickest part of the bush. 

The expedition had started from Trafalgar 
on the afternoon of the same day that Maurice 
Broadhurst’s horse, foam-flecked and fright- 
ened, had galloped up to the old stable-door. 
Burton, the inspector of constabulary, an 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


95 


energetic and able man, as all who knew him 
can testify, was in command. He had de- 
tached Braxton, the young Irishman, and 
Thompson, another trooper, as a vanguard. 
He himself rode with the main body, gray- 
whiskered and lean, but as straight in the 
back as when he and I built a shanty in ’39 
in what is now Burke Street, Melbourne. 
With him were McGillivray, Foley and Anson 
of the Trafalgar force, Hartley the sheep 
farmer, Murdoch and Summerville, who had 
made their pile at the mines, and Dan Murphy, 
who was cleaned out when the clay of the 
“ Orient” turned to gravel, and had been 
yearning for a solid square fight ever since. 
Chicago Bill formed the rearguard, and the 
whole party presented an appearance which, 
though far from military, was decidedly war- 
like. 

They camped out that night seventeen miles 
from Trafalgar, apd next day pushed on as 
far as where the Stirling Road runs across. 
The third morning brought them to the north- 
ern bank of the Wawirra, which they forded. 


96 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 

Here a counsel of war was held, for they 
were entering what they regarded as enemy’s 
country. The bush track, though wild, was 
occasionally traversed both by shepherds and 
sportsmen. It would hardly be the home of 
a gang of desperate bushrangers. But beyond 
the Wawirra the great rugged range of the 
Tapu mountains towered up to the clouds, and 
across a wild spur of these the mining track 
passed up to Bluemansdyke. It was here 
they decided at the counsel that the scene of 
the late drama lay. The question row was 
what means were to be taken to attack the 
murderers; for that murder had been done 
no man doubted. 

All were of one mind as to what the main 
line of action should be. To go for them 
straight, shoot as many as possible on sight, 
and hang the balance in Trafalgar: that was 
plain sailing. But how to get at them was 
the subject of much debate. The troopers 
were for pushing on at once, and trusting to 
Fortune to put the rangers in their way. The 
miners proposed rather to gain some neigh- 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 97 

Coring peak, from which a good view of the 
country could be obtained, and some idea 
gained of their whereabouts. Chicago Bill 
took rather a gloomy view of things. “Nary 
one will we see,” said he; “they’ve dusted 
out of ?the district ’fore this. They’d know 
the horse would go home, and likely as not 
they’ve had a watch on the road to warn 
them. I guess, boys, we’d best move on 
an’ do our best.” There was some discussion, 
but Chicago’s opinion carried the day, and 
the expedition pushed on in a body. 

After passing the second upland station the 
scenery becomes more and more grand and 
rugged. Great peaks two and three thousand 
feet high rose sheer up at each side of the 
narrow track. The heavy wind and rain of 
the storm had brought down much debris , 
and the road was almost impassable in places. 
They were frequently compelled to dismount 
and to lead the horses. “We haven’t far now, 
boys,” said the inspector, cheerily, as they 
stuggled on ; and he pointed to a great dark 
cleft which^yawned in front of them between 


98 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYJOE 

two almost perpendicular cliffs. “They are 
there,” he said, “or nowhere.” A little 
higher the road became better and their prog- 
ress was more rapid. A halt was called, 
guns were unslung, and their pistols loosened 
in their belts, for the great gully of Bluemans- 
dyke — the wildest part of the whole Tapu 
range — was gaping before them. But not a 
thing was to be seen ; all was as still as the 
grave. The horses were picketed in a quiet 
little ravine, and the whole party crept on on 
foot. The southern sun glared down hot and 
clear on the yellow bracken and banks of fern 
which lined the narrow, winding track. Still 
not a sign of life. Then came a clear, low 
whistle from the two advanced troopers, an- 
nouncing that something had been discovered, 
and the main body hurried up. It was a spot 
for deeds of blood. On one side of the road 
there lowered a black gnarled precipice, on 
the other was the sullen mouth of the nigged 
gully. The road took a sharp turn at this 
spot. Just at the angle several large boulders 
Were scattered, lining and overlooking the 


THE ULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 99 

track. It was at this angle that a little bed 
of mud and trampled red clay betokened a 
recent struggle. There could be no question 
that they were at the scene of the murder of 
the two young miners. The outline of a horse 
could still be seen in the soft ground, and 
the prints of its hoofs as it kicked out in its 
death agony were plainly marked. Behind 
one of the rocks were the tracks of several 
feet, and some pistol wadding was found in a 
tuft of ferns. The whole tragedy lay unclosed 
before them. Two men, careless in the pride 
of their youth and their strength, had swept 
round that fatal curve. Then a crash, a groan, 
a brutal laugh, the galloping of a frightened 
horse, and all was over. 

What was to be done now? The rocks 
around were explored, but nothing fresh dis- 
covered. Some six days had elapsed, and 
the birds were apparently flown. The party 
separated and hunted about among the boul- 
ders Then the American, who could follow 
a trail like a bloodhound, found tracks leading 
towards a rugged pile of rocks on the nortk 


IOO 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


side of the gully. In a crevice hire the re- 
mains of three horses were found. Close to 
them the rim of an old straw hat projected 
through the loose loam. Hartley, the sheep- 
farmer, sprang over to pick it up ; he started 
back in the act of stooping and said in an 
awe-struck whisper to his friend Murphy, 
“There’s a head under it, Dan!” A few 
strokes of a spade disclosed a face familiar to 
most of the group — that'of a poor traveling 
photographer well known in the colony by 
the sobriquet of “Stooping Johnny,” who had 
disappeared some time before. It was now 
in an advanced stage of putrefaction. Close 
to him another body was discovered, and 
another beside that. In all, thirteen victims 
of these English Thugs were lying under the 
shadow of the great north wall of the Blue- 
mansdyke gully. It was there, standing in 
silent awe around the remains of these poor 
fellows, hurried into eternity and buried like 
dogs, that the search-party registered a vow 
to sacrifice all interests and comforts for the 
space of one month to the single consideration 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


lOI 


of revenge. The inspector uncovered his 
grizzled head as he solemnly swore it, and 
his comrades followed his example. The 
bodies were then, with a brief prayer, con- 
signed to a deeper grave, a rough cairn was 
erected over them, and the eleven men set 
forth upon their mission of stern justice. 

Three weeks had passed — three weeks and 
two days. The sun was sinking over the 
great waste of bushland, unexplored and un- 
known, which stretches away from the eastern 
slope of the Tapu mountains. Save some 
eccentric sportsman or bold prospector, no 
colonist had ever ventured into that desolate 
land; yet on this autumn evening two men 
were standing in a little glade in the very 
heart of it. They were engaged tying up 
their horses, and apparently making prepara- 
tions for camping out for- the night. Though 
haggard, unkempt and worn, one still might 
recognize two of our former acquaintances — 
the young Irish trooper and the American, 
Chicago Bill. 


102 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


This was the last effort of the avenging 
party. They had traversed the mountain 
gorges, they had explored every gully and 
ravine, and now they had split into several 
small bands and, having named a trysting- 
place, they were scouring the country in the 
hope of hitting upon some trace of the mur- 
derers. Foley and Anson had remained 
among the hills, Murdoch and Dan Murphy 
were exploring towards Rathurst, Summer- 
ville and the inspector had ascended along 
the Wawirra, while the others in three parties 
were wandering through the eastern bushland. 

Both the trooper and the miner seemed de- 
jected and weary. The one had set out with 
visions of glory, and hopes of a short cut to 
the coveted stripes which would put him above 
his fellows; the other had obeyed a rough, 
wild sense of justice; and each was alike dis- 
appointed. The horses were picketed, and 
the men threw themselves heavily upon the 
ground. There was no need to light a fire; 
a few dampers and some rusty bacon were 
their whole provisions. Braxton produced 


THE GULLY OF BLUEManswYKE 103 

them, and handed his share to his comrade. 
They ate their rough meal without a word. 
Braxton was the first to break the silence. 

“ We’re playing our last card,” he said. 

“And a darned poor one at that,” replied 
his comrade. 

“Why, mate,” he continued, “if we did 
knock up agin these all-fired varmin,ye don’t 
suppose you and I would go for them ? I 
guess I’d up an’ shove for Trafalgar first.” 

Braxton smiled. Chicago’s reckless cour- 
age was too well known in the colony for any 
words of his to throw a doubt upon it. Miners 
still tell how,, during the first great rush in 
’52, a blustering ruffian, relying upon some 
similar remark of the pioneer’s, had tried to 
establish a reputation by an unprovoked 
assault upon him ; and the narrators then glide 
imperceptibly into an account of Bill’s hand- 
some conduct towards the widow — how he 
had given her his week’s clean-up to start 
her in a drinking shanty. Braxton thought 
of this as he smiled at Chicago’s remarks, 
and glanced at the massive limbs and weather 
beaten face. 


104 THE GULI -Y 0F BLUEMANSDYKE 

“We’d best see where we are before it 
grows darker,” he said; and rising, he stacked 
his gun against the trunk of a blue gum-tree, 
and seizing some of the creepers which hung 
down from it. began rapidly and silently to 
ascend it. 

“His soul’s too big for his body,” growled 
the American, as he watched the dark, lithe 
figure standing out against the pale-blue even- 
ing sky. 

“What d’ye see, Jack?” he shouted; for 
the trooper had reached the topmost branch 
by this time, and was taking a survey of the 
country. 

“Bush, bush; nothing but bush,” said the 
voice among the leaves. “Wait a bit, though; 
there’s a kind of hill about three miles off 
away to the nor’east. I see it above the trees 
right over there. Not much good to us, 
though,” he continued, after a pause, “for it 
seems a barren, stony sort of place.” 

Chicago paced about at the bottom of the 
tree. 

“He seems an almighty long time pros- 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


pectin’ it,” he muttered, after ten minutes 
had elapsed. “Ah, here he is!” and the 
trooper came swinging down and landed 
panting just in front of him. 

“Why, what’s come over him? What’s the 
matter, Jack?” 

Something was the matter. That was very 
evident. There was a light in Braxton’s 
blue eyes, and a flush on the pale cheek. 

“Bill,” he said, putting his hand on his 
comrade’s shoulder, “it’s about time you 
made tracks for the settlements.” 

“What d’ye mean?” said Chicago. 

“Why, I mean that the murderers are with- 
in a league of us, and that I intend going for 
them. There, don’t be huffed, old man,” he 
added; “of course I knew you were only 
joking. But they are there, Bill; I saw smoke 
on the top of that hill, and it wasn’t good, 
honest smoke, mind you; it was dry-wood 
smoke and meant to be hid. I thought it was 
mist at first; but no, it was smoke. I’ll swear 
it. It could only be them ; who else would 
camp on the summit of a desolate hill ? We’ve 


106 *XHfi WSM*r OF BLimMANSD¥KE 

got them, B1II5 -wf have them as sure as 
Fate.” 

“Or they’ve got us,” growled the Ameri- 
can. “But here, lad, here’s my glass; ruti 
up and have a look at them.” 

“It’s too dark now,” said Braxton; “we’ll 
camp out to-night. No fear of them stirring* 
They’re lying by there until the whole thing 
blows over, depend upon it; so we’ll make 
sure of them in the morning.” 

The miner looked plaintively up at the tree* 
and then down at his fourteen stone of solid 
muscle. 

“ I guess I must take your word for it,’ 5 he 
grumbled; “but you are bushman enough 
to tell smoke from mist, and a dry-wood fire 
from an open one. We can’t do anything 
to-night till we feel our way, so I allow we'd 
best water the horses, an’ have a good night’s 
rest.” 

Braxton seemed to be of the same mind ; so 
after a few minutes’ preparation the two men 
wrapped themselves in their dorks and lay, 
two little, dark spots, on the great, green 
carpet of the primeval bush. 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE IO7 

With the first gray light of dawn Chicago 
sat up and roused his comrade. A heavy 
mist hung over the bushland. They could 
hardly see the loom of the trees across the 
little glade. Their clothes glistened with the 
little., shining beads of moisture. They 
brushed each other down, and squatted in bush 
fashion over their rough breakfast. The haze 
seemed to be lifting a little now; they could 
see fifty yards in every direction. The miner 
paced up and down in silence, ruminating over 
a plug of “Barrett’s twist.” Braxton sat on 
a fallen tree sponging and oiling his revolver. 
Suddenly a single beam of sunshine played 
over the great, blue gun It widened and 
spread, and then in a moment the mist melted 
away, and the yellow leaves glowed like flakes 
of copper in the glare of the morning sun. 
Braxton cheerily snapped the lock of his 
pistol, loaded it, and replaced it in his belt. 
Chicago began to whistle, and stopped in the 
middle of his walk. 

“Now, young un,” he said, “here’s the 
glass.” 


ld3 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 

Braxton slung it around his neck and 
ascended the tree as he had done the night 
before. It was child’s-play to the trooper — 
a splendid climber, as I can testify; for I saw 
him two years later swarming up the topmost 
backstay of the Hector frigate in a gale of 
wind for a bet of a bottle of wine. He soon 
reached the summit, and shuffling along a 
naked branch two hundred feet from the 
ground, he gained a point where no leaves 
could obstruct his view. Here he sat straddle- 
legged; and, unslinging the glass, he pro- 
ceeded to examine the hill, bush by bush and 
stone by stone. 

An hour passed without his moving. An- 
other had almost elapsed before he descended. 
His face was grave and thoughtful. 

“Are they there?” was the eager query. 

“Yes; they are there.” 

“How many?” 

“I’ve only seen five; but there may be 
more. Wait till I think it out, Bill.” 

The miner gazed at him with all the rev- 
erence matter has towards mind. Thinking 
things out was not his strong point. 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE IO9 

“ Blamed if I can help you,” he said apol- 
ogetically. “It kinder don’t come nat’ral to 
me to be plottin’an’ plannin’. Want o’ eddi- 
cation, likely. My father was allowed to be 
the hardest-headed man in the States. Judge 
Jeffers let on as how the old man wanted to 
hand in his checks; so he down an’ put his 
head on the line when the first engine as ran 
from Vermont was cornin’ up. They fined 
him a hundred dollars for upsettin’ that ’ere 
locomotive; an’ the old man got the cussedest 
headache as ever was.” 

Braxton hardly seemed to hear this family 
anecdote; he was deep in thought. 

“Look here, old man,” said he; “sit down 
by me on the trunk and listen to what I say. 
Remember that you are here as a volunteer. 
Bill — you’ve no call to come; now, I am here 
in the course of duty. Your name is known 
through the settlement; you were a marked 
man when I was in the nursery. Now, Bill, 
it’s a big thing I am going to ask you. If 
you and I go in and take these men, it will 
be another feather in your cap, and in yours 


no 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKi 


only. What do men know of Jack Braxton , 
the private of police? He’d hardly be men- 
tioned in the matter. Now, I want to make 
my name this day. We’ll have to secure these 
men by a surprise after dusk, and it will be as 
easy for one resolute man to do it as for two; 
perhaps easier, for there is less chance of 
detection. Bill, I want you to stay with the 
horses, and let me go alone.” 

Chicago sprang to his feet with a snarl of 
indignation, and paced up and down in front 
of the fallen trees. Then he seemed to master 
himself, for he sat down again. 

“ They’d chaw you up, lad,” he said, put- 
ting his hand on Braxton’s shoulder. “It 
wouldn’t wash.” 

“Not they,” said the trooper. “I’d take 
your pistol as well as my own, and I’d need a 
deal of chawing.” 

“My character would be ruined,” said 
Bill. 

“ It’s beyond the reach of calumny. You 
can afford to give me one fair chance.” 

Bill buried his face in his hands, and 
thought a little. 


THE GUX.L.Y OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


III 


“Well, lad,” be said, looking up, M I , ll lool$ 
after the horses.” 

Braxton wrung him by the hand. 

“There are few men would have done it, 
Bill ; you are a friend worth having. Now, 
we’ll spend our day as best we can, old man, 
and lie close till evening; fori won’t start till 
an hour after dusk ; so we have plenty of time 
on our hands.” 

The day passed slowly. The trooper lay 
among the mosses below the great blue gum 
in earnest thought. Once or twice he imag- 
ined he heard the subterranean chuckle and 
slap of the thigh which usually denoted amuses 
ment on the part of the miner; but on glanc- 
ing up at that individual, the expression of 
his face was so solemn, not to say funereal, 
that it was evidently an illusion. They par- 
took of their scanty dinner and supper cheer- 
fully and with hearty appetites. The former 
listlessness had given place to briskness and 
activity, now that their object was in view. 
Chicago blossomed out into many strange ex- 
periences and racy reminiscences of Western 


THE GUIaEY OF BLUEMANSDYKB 


life. The hours passed rapidly and cheenly. 
The trooper produced a venerable pack of 
cards from his holster and proposed euchre; 
but their gregariousness, and the general 
difficulty of distinguishing the king of clubs 
from the ace of hearts, exercised a depressing 
influence on the players. Gradually the sun 
went down on the great wilderness. The 
shadow fell on the little glade while the dis- 
tant hill was still tipped with gold ; then that 
too became purplish, a star twinkled over the 
Tapu range, and night crept over the scene. 

“ Good-by, old man, 7 ’ said Braxton. “I 
won’t take my carbine; it would only be in 
the way. I can’t thank you enough for let- 
ting me have this chance. If they wipe me 
out, Bill, you’ll not lose sight of them, I 
know, and you’ll say I died like a man. 
I’ve got no friends and no message, and noth- 
ing in the world but this pack of cards. Keep 
them, Bill; they were a fine pack in ’51. If 
you see a smoke on the hill in the morning 
you’ll know all’s well, and you’ll bring up 
the horses at once. If you don’t, you’ll ride 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 1 1 3 

to fallen pine, where we were to meet — 
ride day and night, Bill — tell Inspector Bur- 
ton that you know where the rangers are, 
that Private Braxton is dead, and that he said 
he was to bring up his men, else he’d come 
back from the grave and lead them up himself. 
Do that, Bill. Good-by.” 

A great quiet rested over the heart of that 
desolate woodland. The croak of a frog, the 
gurgle of a little streamlet half hidden in the 
long grass — no other sound. Then a wakeful 
jay gave a shrill chatter, another joined and 
another; a bluefinch screamed; a wombat 
rushed past to gain its burrow. Something 
had disturbed them; yet all was apparently 
as peaceful as before. Mad you been by the 
jay’s nest, however, and peered downwards, 
you would have seen something gliding like 
a serpent through the brushwood, and caught 
a glimpse, perhaps, of a pale, resolute face, 
and the glint of a pocket-compass pointing 
north-by-east. 

It was a long and weary night for Troope* 


114 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDVKE 

Braxton. Any moment he might come on an 
outpost of the rangers, so every step had to 
be taken slowly and with care. But he was 
an experienced woodman, and hardly a twig 
snapped as he crawled along. A morass 
barred his progress, and he was compelled 
to make a long detour. Then he found him- 
self in thick brushwood, and once more had 
to go out of his way. It was very dark here 
in the depth of the forest. There was a heavy 
smell, and a dense steam laden with miasma 
rose from the ground. In the dim light he 
saw strange creeping things around him. A 
bushmaster writhed across the path in front of 
him, a cold, dank lizard crawled over his 
hand as he crouched down ; but the trooper 
thought only of the human reptiles in front, 
and made steadily for his goal. Once he 
seemed to be pursued by some animal; he 
heard a creaking behind him, but it ceased 
when he stopped and listened, so he continued 
his way. 

It was when he reached the base of the hill 
which he had seen from the distance that the 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE II5 

real difficulty of his undertaking began. It 
was almost conical in shape, and very steep. 
The sides were covered with loose stones and 
an occasional large boulder. One false step 
here would send a shower of these tell-tale 
fragments clattering down the hill. The 
trooper stripped off his high leather boots and 
turned up his trousers; then he began cau- 
tiously to climb, cowering down behind every 
boulder. 

There was a little patch of light far away 
on the horizon, a very little, gray patch, but 
it caused the figure of a man who was mov- 
ing upon the crest of the hill to loom out dim 
and large. He was a sentry, apparently, 
for he carried a gun under his arm. The top 
of the hill was formed by a little plateau 
about a hundred yards in circumference. 
Along the edge of this the man was pacing, 
occasionally stopping to peer down into the 
great, dusky sea beneath him. From this 
raised edge the plateau curved down from 
every side, so as to form a crater-like depres- 
sion. In the center of this hollow stood a 


1 1 6 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 

large, white tent. Several horses were pick v 
eted around it, and the ground was littered 
with bundles of dried grass and harness. You 
could see these details now from the edge of 
the plateau, for the gray patch in the east had 
become white, and was getting longer and 
wider. You could see the sentry’s face, too, 
as he paced round and round. A handsome, 
weak-minded face, with more of the fool than 
the devil impressed on it. He seemed cheer- 
ful, for the birds were beginning to sing, and 
their thousand voices rose from the bush be- 
low. He forgot the forged note, I think, and 
the dreary voyage, and the wild escape, and 
the dark gully away beyond the Tapu range; 
for his eyes glistened, and he hummed a 
quaint little Yorkshire country air. He was 
back again in the West Riding village, and 
the rough boulder in front shaped itself into 
the hill behind which Nelly lived before he 
broke her heart, and he saw the ivied church 
that crowned it. He would have seen some- 
thing else had he looked again— something that 
was not in his picture: a white, passionless 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 1 1 7 

face which glared at him over the” boulder 
as he turned upon his heel, still singing, and 
unconscious that the bloodhounds of justice 
were close at his heels. 

The trooper’s time for action had come. 
He had reached the last boulder; nothing lay 
between the plateau and himself but a few 
loose stones. He could hear the song of the 
sentry dying away in the distance; he drew 
his regulation sword, and with his Adams in 
his left, he rose and sprang like a tiger over 
the ridge and down into the hollow. 

The sentry was startled from his dream of 
the past by a clatter and a rattling of stones. 
He sprang round and cocked his gun. No 
wonder that he gasped, and that a change 
passed over his bronzed face. A painter 
would need a dash of ultramarine in his flesh- 
tints to represent it now. No wonder, I say; 
for that dark, active figure with the bare 
feet and the brass buttons meant disgrace 
and the gallows to him. He saw him spring 
across to the tent; he saw the gleam of a 
sword, and heard a crash as the tent-pole 


1 18 THE GHELY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 

was severed and the canvas came down 
with a run upon the heads of the sleepers. 
And then above oaths and shouts he heard a 
mellow Irish voice — “I’ve twelve shots in 
my hands. I have ye, every mother’s' son. 
Up with your arms! up, I say, before there is 
blood uqon my soul. One move, and ye 
^ stand before the throne.” Braxton had 
stooped and parted the doorway of the fallen 
tent, and was now standing over six ruffians 
who occupied it. They lay as they had 
wakened, but with their hands above their 
heads, for there was no resisting that quiet 
voice, backed up by the two black muzzles. 
They imagined they were surrounded and 
hopelessly outmatched. Not dne of them 
dreamed that the whole attacking force stood 
before them. It was the sentry who first began 
to realize the true state of the case. There was 
no sound or sight of any reinforcement. He 
looked to see that the cap was pressed well 
down on the nipple, and crept towards the 
tent. He was a good shot, as many a keeper 
on Braidagarth and the Yorkshire fells could 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE II9 

testify. He raised his gun to his shoulder. 
Braxton heard the click, but dared not re- 
move his eye or his weapon from his six pris- 
oners. The sentry looked along the sights. 
He knew his life depended on that shot. 
There was more of the devil than the fool in 
his face now. He paused a moment to make 
sure of his aim, and then came a crash and 
the thud of a falling body. Braxton was still 
standing over the prisoners, but the sentry’s 
gun was unfired, and he himself was writhing 
on the ground with a bullet through his 
lungs. “Ye see,” said Chicago, as he rose 
from behind a rock with his gun still smok- 
ing in his hand, “it seemed a powerful mean 
thing to leave you, Jack; so I thought as I’d 
kinder drop around promiscus, and wade ir 
if needed, which I was, as you can’t deny. 
No, ye don’t,” he added, as the sentry 
stretched out his hand to grasp his fallen gun; 
“leave the wepin alone, young man; it ain’t 
in your way as it lies there.” 

“I’m a dead man!” groaned the ranger. 

“Then lie quiet like a respectable corpse,” 


120 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKB 


said the miner, “an’ don’t go a-squirmin’ 
towards yer gun. That’s ornary uneddicated 
conduct*” 

“Come here, Bill,” cried Braxton, “and 
biing the ropes those horses are picketed 
with. Now,” he continued, as the Ameri- 
can, having abstracted the sentry’s gun, ap- 
peared with an armful of ropes, “you tie these 
fellows up, and I’ll kill any man who moves.” 

“A pleasant division of labor, eh, old Blath- 
erskite,” said Chicago, playfully tapping the 
one eyed villain Maloney on the head. “ Come 
on; the ugliest fir^t!’^ So saying, he began 
on him and fastened him securely. 

One after another the rangers were tied up; 
all except the wounded man, who was too 
helpless to need securing. Then Chicago 
went down and brought up the horses, while 
Braxton remained on guard; and by mid- 
day the cavalcade was in full m^rch through 
the forest en route for Fallen Pihe, the ren- 
dezvous of the search-party. The wounded 
man was tied on to a horse in front, the 
other rangers followed on foot for safety, 


THE GULLY OF BLUBMANSDYKE 


121 


while the trooper and Chicago brought up 

the rear. 

There was a sad assemblage at Fallen Pine. 
One by one they had dropped in, tanned with 
the sun, torn by briers, weakened by the 
poisonous miasma of the marshlands, all with 
the same tale of privation and failure. Sum- 
merville and the inspector had fallen in with 
blacks above the upper ford, and had barely 
escaped with their lives. Troopers Foley and 
Anson were well, though somewhat gaunt 
from privation. Hartley had lost his horse 
from the bite of a bushmaster. Murdock and 
Murphy had scoured the bush as far as 
Rathurst, but without success. All were de- 
jected and weary. They only waited the ar- 
rival of two of their number to set out on their 
return to Tr?ualgar. 

It was mid-day, and the sun was beating 
down with a pitiless glare on the little clear- 
ing. The men were lying about on the shady 
side of the trunks, some smoking, some with 
their hats over their faces and half asleep. 


122 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


The horses were tethered here and there, 
looking as listless as their masters. Only 
the inspector’s old charger seemed superior 
to the weather — a shrewd , blase old horse,that 
had seen the world, and was nearly as deeply 
versed in woodcraft as his master. As Chicago 
said, “Short of climbin’ a tree, there weren’t 
nothin’ that horse couldn’t do; an’ it would 
make a darned good try at that if it was 
pushed. ”01d“ Sawback” seemed ill at ease this 
afternoon. Twice he had pricked up his ears, 
and once he had raised his head as if to neigh, 
but paused before committing himself. The 
inspector looked at him curiously and put his 
meerschaum back into its cc^e. Meerschaums 
always were a weakness of poor Jim Bur- 
ton’s. “Demme it, sir,” I have heard him 
say, “a gentleman is known by his pipe. 
When he comes down in the wprld his pipe 
has most vitality.” He put thy case inside 
his uniform and went over to th4 horse. The 
ears were still twitching. v 

“He hears something,” said the inspector. 
“By Jove, so do I! Here, boys, jump up? 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKB 1 23 

there’s a body of men coming !” Everyman 
sprang to his horse’s head. “ I hear hoofs 
and I hear the tramp of men on foot. They 
must be a large party. They’re heading 
straight for us. Get under cover, boys, and 
have your guns loose.” The men wheeled 
right and left, and in a very few moments 
the glade was deserted. Only the brown 
barrel of a gun here and there among the 
long grass and the ferns showed where they 
were crouching. “Steady, boys!” said Bur- 
ton; “if they are enemies, don’t fire till I 
give the word. Then one by one aim low, 
and let the smoke clear. Rangers, by Jove!” 
he added, as a horseman broke into the clear- 
ing some way down, with his head hanging 
down over his horse’s neck. “More,” he 
growled, as several men emerged from the 
bush at the same point. “By the living pow- 
ers, they are taken! I see the ropes. Hur- 
rah!” And the next moment Braxton and 
Chicago were mobbed by nine shouting, 
dancing men, who pulled them and tugged 
at them, and slapped them on the back, and 


1 24 THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKK 

dragged them about in such a way, that Ma* 
loney whispered with a scowl; 

“If we’d had the grit to do as much, we’d 
have been free men this day!” 

And now our story is nearly done. We 
have chronicled a fact which we think is 
worthy of a wider circulation than the co- 
lonial drinking-bar and the sheep-farmer’s 
fireside, for Trooper Braxton and his capture 
of the Bluemansdyke murderers have long 
been household words among our brothers in 
the England of the Southern seas. 

We need not detail that joyful ride to Tra- 
falgar, nor the welcome, nor the attempt at 
l} r nching; nor how Maloney, the arch crim- 
inal, turned Queen’s evidence, and so writhed 
away from the gallows. All that may be 
read in the colonial press more graphically 
than I can tell it. My friend Jack Braxton 
is an officer now, as his father was before 
him, and still in the Trafalgar force. Bill 
I saw last in *6i, when he came over to Lon- 
don in charge of the bark of the Welling' onia 
for the International Exhibition. He is 1? f .ng 


THE GULLY OF BLUEMANSDYKE 


on flesh, I fear, since he took to sheep-farming; 
for he was barely brought up by seventeen 
stone, and his fighting weight used to be 
fourteen ; but he looks well and hearty. Ma- 
loney was lynched in Placerville — at least so 
I heard. I had a letter last mail from the old 
inspector; he has left the police, and has a 
farm at Rathurst. I think, stout-hearted as 
he is, he must give a little bit of a shudder 
when he rides down to Trafalgar for the 
Thursday market, and comes round that sharp 
turn of the road where the boulders lie, and 
the furze looks so yellow against the red 
clay. 




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THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S 
GULCH. 

He was i known in the Gulch as the Rev* 
erend Elias B. Hopkins, but it was generally 
understood that the title was an honorary one, 
extorted by his many eminent qualities, and 
not borne out by any legal claim which he 
could adduce. “The Parson” was another 
of his sobriquets , which was sufficiently dis- 
itnctive in a land where the flock was scat- 
tered and the shepherds few. To do him 
justice, he never pretended to have received 
any preliminary training for the ministry or 
any orthodox qualification to practice it. 
“We’re all working in the claim of the 
Lord,” he remarked one day, “and it don’t 
matter a cent whether we’re hired for the job 
or whether we waltzes in on our own ac- 
count,” a piece of rough imagery which ap- 
pealed directly to the instincts of Jackman’s 
137 


128 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

Gulch. It is quite certain that during the 
first few months his presence had a marked 
effect in diminishing the excessive use both 
of strong drinks and of stronger adjectives 
which had been characteristic of the little 
mining settlement. Under his tuition, men 
began to understand that the resources of their 
native language were less limited than th|*y 
had supposed, and that it was possible to con- 
vey their impressions with accuracy without 
the aid of a gaudy halo of profanity. We 
were certainly in need of a regenerator at 
Jackman’s Gulch about the beginning of ’53. 
Times were flush then over the whole colony, 
but nowhere flusher than there. Our material 
prosperity had had a bad effect upon our mor- 
als. The camp was a small one, lying rather 
better than a hundred and twenty miles to the 
south of Ballarat, at a spot where a mountair 
torrent finds its way down a rugged ravine 
on its way to join the Arrowsmith River. His- 
tory does not relate who the original Jack- 
man may have been, but at the time I speak 
of the camp it contained a hundred or so 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 229 

adults, many of whom were men who had 
sought an asylum there after making more 
civilized mining centers too hot to hold 
them. They were a rough, murderous crew, 
hardly leavened by the few respectable mem- 
bers of society who were scattered among 
them. 

Communication between Jackman’s Gulch 
anu the outside world was difficult and un- 
certain. A portion of the bush between it 
and Ballarat was infested by a redoubtable 
outlaw named Conky Jim, who, with a small 
gang as desperate as himself, made traveling 
a dangerous matter. It was customary, 
therefore, at the Gulch, to store up the dust 
and nuggets obtained from the mines in a 
special store, each man’s share being placed 
in a separate bag on which his name was 
marked. A trusty man, named Woburn, was 
deputed to watch over this primitive bank. 
When the amount deposited became consider- 
able, a wagon was hired, and the whole treas- 
ure was conveyed to Ballarat, guarded by 
the police and by a certain number of miners, 


13© THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

who took it in turn to perform the office, 
Once in Ballarat, it was forwarded on to Mel- 
bourne by the regular gold wagons. By this 
plan, the gold was often kept for months in 
the Gulch before being dispatched, but Conky 
Jim was effectually checkmated, as the escort 
party were far too strong for him and his 
gang. He appeared, at the time of which I 
write, to have forsaken his haunts in disgust* 
and the road could be traversed by small 
darties with impunity. 

* Comparative order used to reign during the 
daytime at Jackman’s Gulch, for the majority 
of the inhabitants were out with crowbar and 
pick among the quartz ledges, or washing clay 
and sand in their cradles by the banks of the 
little stream. As the sun sank down, how- 
ever, the claims were gradually deserted, and 
their unkempt owners, clay-bespattered and 
shaggy, came lounging into camp, ripe for 
any form of mischief. Their first visit was 
to Woburn’s gold store, where their clean-up 
of the day was duly deposited, the amount 
being entered in the store-keeper’s book, and 


VHE PARSON OF JACKMAN ? S GULCH l$l 

es miner retaining enough to cover his 
evening’s expenses. After that all restraint 
was at an end, and each set to work to get 
rid of his surplus dust with the greatest rap- 
idity possible. The focus of dissipation was 
the rough bar, formed by a couple of hogs- 
heads spanned by planks, which was digni- 
fied by the name of the “ Britannia Drinking 
Saloon.” Here Nat Adams, the burly bar- 
keeper, dispensed bad whisky at the rate of 
two shillings a noggin, or a guinea a bottle, 
while his brother Ben acted as croupier in a 
rude wooden shanty behind, which had been 
converted into a gambling hell, and was 
crowded every night. There had been a third 
brother, but an unfortunate misunderstand- 
ing with a customer had shortened his exist- 
ence. “ He was too soft to live long,” his 
brother Nathaniel feelingly observed on the 
occasion of his funeral. “Many’s the time 
I’ve said to him, ‘If you’re arguin’ a pint 
with a stranger, you should always draw first, 
then argue, and then shoot, if you judge that 
he’s on the shoot.’ Bill was too purlite. He 


132 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

must needs argue first and draw after, when 
he might just as well have kivered his man 
before talkin’ it over with him.” This amia- 
ble weakness of the deceased Bill was a blow 
to the firm of Adams, which became so short- 
handed that the concern could hardly be 
worked without the admission of a partner, 
which would mean a considerable decrease 
in the profits. 

Nat Adams had a roadside shanty in the 
Gulch before the discovery of gold, and 
might, therefore, claim to be the oldest inhabit- 
ant. These keepers of shanties were a pecu- 
liar race, and, at the cost of a digression, 
it may oe interesting to explain how they 
managed to amass considerable sums of money 
in a land where travelers were few and far 
between. It was the custom of the “bush- 
men,” that is, bullock drivers, sheep tenders, 
and the other white hands who worked on 
the sheep-runs up country, to sign articles by 
which they agreed to serve their master for 
od^, two, or three years at so much per year 
and certain daily rations. Liquor was never 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN'S GULCH 1 33 

included in this agreement, and the men re- 
mained, per force, total abstainers during the 
whole time. The money was paid in a lump 
sum at the end of the engagement. When 
that day came round, Jimmy, the stockman, 
would come slouching into his master’s office, 
cabbage-tree hat in hand. 

“Morning, master!” Jimmy would say. 
“My time’s up. I guess I’ll draw my check 
and ride down to town.” 

“You’ll come back, Jimmy?” 

“Yes, I’ll come back. Maybe I’ll be away 
three weeks, maybe a month. I want some 
clothes, master, and my bloomin’ boots are 
well nigh off my feet.” 

“How much, Jimmy?” asks his master, 
taking up his pen. 

“There’s sixty pound screw,” Jimmy an- 
swers, thoughtfully; “and you mind, master, 
last March, when the brindled bull broke out 
o’ the paddock. Two pound you promised 
me then. And a pound at the dipping. And 
a pound when Millar’s sheep got mixed with 
ourn;” and so he goes on, for bushmen can 
seldom write, but they have memories which 
nothing escapes. 


134 THE parson of Jackman's gulch 

His master writes the check and hands it 
across the table. “Don’t get on the drink, 
Jimmy,” he says. 

“No fear of that, master,” and the stock- 
man slips the check into his leather pouch, 
and within an hour he is ambling off upon his 
long-limbed horse on his hundred mile journey 
to town. 

Now Jimmy has to pass some six or eight 
of the above-mentioned roadside shanties in 
his day’s ride, and experience has taught him 
that if he once breaks his accustomed total 
abstinence, the unwonted stimulant has an 
overpowering effect upon his brain. Jimmy 
shakes his head warily as he determines that 
no earthly consideration will induce him to 
partake of any liquor until his business is 
over. His only chance is to avoid tempta- 
tion, so, knowing that there is the first of 
tnese houses some half mile ahead, he plunges 
into a by-path through the bush which will 
lead him out at the other side. Jimmy is 
iiding resolutely along this narrow path, con- 
gratulating himself upon a danger escapeu, 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GUJLCH 1 35 

when he becomes aware of a sunburned, 
black-bearded man who is leaning uncon- 
cernedly against a tree beside the track. This 
is none other than the shanty-keeper, who, 
having observed Jimmy’s maneuver in the 
distance, has taken a short cut through the 
bush in order to intercept him. 

“Morning, Jimmy!” he cries, as the horse* 
man comes up to him. 

“Morning, mate; morning!” 

“Where are ye off to-day, then?” 

“Off to town,” says Jimmy, sturdily. 

“No, now — are you though? You’ll have 
bully times down there for a bit. Come 
round and have a drink at my place. Just 
by way of luck.” 

“No,” says Jimmy, “I don’t want a 
drink.” 

“Just a little damp.” 

“I tell ye I don’t want one,” says the stock- 
man, angrily. 

“Well, ye needn’t be so darned short 
about it. •> It’s nothin’ to me whether you 
drinks or not. Good mornin’.” 


I36 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

“Good mornin’,” says Jimmy, and has rid- 
den on about twenty yards when he hears the 
other calling on him to stop. 

“See here, Jimmy !” he says, overtaking 
him again. “If you’ll do me a kindness when 
you’re up in town I’d be obliged/’ 

“What is it?” 

“It’s a letter, Jim, as I wants posted. It’s 
an important one, too, an’ I wouldn’t trust 
it with every one; but I knows you, and if 
you’ll take charge on it it’ll be a powerful 
weight off my mind.” 

“Give it here,” Jimmy says laconically. 

“I hain’t got it here. It’s round in my 
caboose. Come round for it with me. It 
ain’t more’n quarter of a mile.” Jimmy 
consents reluctantly. When they reach the 
tumble-down hut the keeper asks him cheer- 
ily to dismount and to come in. 

“Give me the letter,” says Jimmy. 

“It ain’t altogether wrote yet, but you sit 
down here for a minute and it’ll be right,” 
and soothe the stockman is beguiled into the 
shanty. 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN *S GULCH 1 37 

At last the letter is ready and handed over. 
“Now, Jimmy,” says the keeper, “one drink 
at my expense before you go.” 

“Not a taste,” says Jimmy. 

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” the other says in an 
aggrieved tone. “You are too damned proud 
to drink with a poor cove like me. Here 
— give us back that letter. I’m cursed if I’ll 
accept a favor from a man who’s too almighty 
big to have a drink with me.” 

“Well, well, mate, don’t turn rusty,” says 
Jim. “Give us one drink an’ I’m off.” 

The keeper pours out about half a pan- 
nikin of raw rum and hands it to the bush- 
man. The moment he smells the old familiar 
smell his longing for it returns, and he swigs 
it off at a gulp. His eyes shine more brightly, 
and his face becomes flushed. The keeper 
watches him narrowly. “ You can go now, 
Jim,” he says. 

“Steady, mate, steady,” says thebushman. 
“I’m as good a man as you. If you stand 
a drink, I can stand one too, I suppose.” So 
the pannikin is replenished, and Jimmy’s 
seey shine brighter still. 


1 jS THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

“Now, Jimmy, one last drink for the good 
of the house,” says the keeper, “and then it’s 
time you were off.” The stockman has a 
third gulp from the pannikin, and with it all 
his scruples and good resolutions vanish 
forever. 

“Look here,” he says, somewhat huskily, 
taking his check out of his pouch. “You 
take this, mate. Whoever comes along this 
road, ask ’em what they’ll have, and tell them 
it’s my shout. Let me know when the mon- 
ey’s done.” 

So Jimmy abandons the idea of ever get- 
ting to town, and for three weeks or a month 
he lies about the shanty in a state of extreme 
drunkenness, and reduces every wayfarer 
upon the road to the same condition. At last 
one fine morning the keeper comes to him. 

“The coin’s done, Jimmy,” he says; “it’s 
about time you made some more.” So Jim- 
my has a good wash to sober him, straps his 
blanket and his billy to his back, and rides 
off through the bush to the sheep-run, where 
he has another year of sobriety, terminating 
in another month of intoxication. 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 1 39 

All this, though typical of the happy-go- 
lucky manners of the inhabitants, has no di- 
rect bearing upon Jackman’s Gulch, so we 
must return to that Arcadian settlement. Ad- 
ditions to the population there were not nu- 
merous, and such as came about the -time of 
which I speak were even rougher and fiercer 
than the original inhabitants. In particular, 
there came a brace of ruffians named Phillips 
and Maule, who rode into camp one day and 
started a claim upon the other side of the 
stream, They outgulched the Gulch in the 
virulence and fluency of their blasphemy, in 
the truculence of their speech and manner, 
and in their reckless disregard of all social 
laws. They claimed to have come from 
Bendigo, and there were some amongst us 
who wished that the redoubted Conky Jim 
was on the track once more, as long as he 
would close it to such visitors as these. After 
their arrival, the nightly proceedings at the 
“Britannia Bar” and at the gambling hell 
behind became more riotous than ever. Vio- 
lent quarrels, frequently ending in bloodshed, 


I4O THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

were of constant occurrence. The more 
peaceable frequenters of the bai began to talk 
seriously of lynching the two strangers who 
were the principal promoters of disorder. 
Things were in this unsatisfactory condition 
when our evangelist, Elias B. Hopkins, came 
limping into the camp, travel-stained and foot- 
sore, with his spade strapped across his back 
and his Bible in the pocket of his moleskin 
jacket. 

His presence w/as hardly noticed at first, 
so insignificant was the man. His manner 
was quiet and unobtrusive, his face pale, and 
his figure fragile. On better acquaintance, 
however, there was a squareness and firm- 
ness about his clean-shaven lower jaw, and 
an intelligence in his widely-opened blue 
eyes, which marked him as a man of char- 
acter. He erected a small hut for himself, 
and started a claim close to that occupied 
by the two strangers who had preceded him. 
This claim -was chosen with a ludicrous dis- 
regard for all practical laws of mining, and 
at once stamped the new-comer as being a 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH I4I 

green hand at his work. It was piteous to 
observe him every morning as we passed to 
our work, digging and delving with the 
greatest industry, but, as we knew well, with- 
out the smallest possibility of any result. He 
would pause for a moment as we went by, 
wipe his pale face with his bandanna hand- 
kerchief and shout out to us a cordial morn- 
ing greeting, and then fall to again with 
redoubled energy. By degrees we got into the 
way of making a half-pitying, half-contemp- 
tuous inquiry as to how he got on. “I hain’t 
struck it yet, boys,” he would answer cheer- 
ily, leaning on his spade, “ but the bed-rock 
lies deep just here abouts, and I reckon we’ll 
get among the pay gravel to-day.” Day after 
day he returned the same reply with unvary- 
ing confidence and cheerfulness. 

It was not long before he began to show 
us the stuff that was in him. One night the 
proceedings were unusually violent at the 
drinking saloon. A rich pocket had been 
struck during the day, and the striker was 
standing treat in a lavish and promiscuous 


I42 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

fashion, which had reduced three parts of the 
settlement to a state of wild intoxication. A 
crowd of drunken idlers stood or lay about 
the bar, cursing, swearing, shoutings dancing, 
and here and there firing their pistols into the 
air out of pure wantonness. From the interior 
of the shanty behind there came a similar 
chorus. Maule, Phillips, and the roughs 
who followed them were in the ascendant, 
and all order and decency were swept away. 

Suddenly amid this tumult of oaths and 
drunken cries, men became conscious of a 
quiet monotone which underlay all other 
sounds and obtruded itself at every pause in 
the uproar. Gradually first one man and 
then another paused to listen, until there was 
a general cessation of the hubbub, and every 
eye was turned in the direction whence this 
quiet stream of words flowed. There, mounted 
upon a barrel, was Elias B. Hopkins, the 
newest of the inhabitants of Jackman’s Gulch, 
with a good-humored smile upon his resolute 
face. He held an open Bible in his hand, 
and was reading aloud a passage taken at ran- 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 1 43 

dom — an extract from the Apocalypse, if I 
remember right. The words were entirely 
irrelevant, and without the smallest bearing 
upon the scene before him ; but he plodded 
on with great unction, waving his left hand 
slowly to the cadence of his words. 

There was a general shout of laughter and 
applause at this apparition, and Jackman’s 
Gulch gathered round the barrel approvingly, 
under the impression that this was some or- 
nate joke, and that they were about to be 
treated to some mock sermon or parody of 
the chapter read. When, however, the 
reader, having finished the chapter, placidly 
commenced another, and having finished that 
rippled on into another one, the revelers came 
to the conclusion that the joke was somewhat 
too long-winded. The commencement of yet 
another chapter confirmed this opinion, and 
an angry chorus of shouts and cries, with 
suggestions as to gagging the reader, or 
knocking him off the barrel, rose from every 
side. In spite of roars and hoots, however, 
Elias B. Hopkins plodded away at the Apoc- 


144 THE pARS0N OF Jackman’s gulch 

alypse with the same serene countenance, 
looking as ineffably contented as though the 
babel around him was the most gratifying ap- 
plause. Before long an occasional boot pat- 
tered against the barrel, or whistled past our 
parson’s head; but here some of the more or- 
derly of the inhabitants interfered in favor of 
peace and order, aided curiously enough by 
the afore-mentioned Maule and Phillips, who 
warmly espoused the cause of the little Scrip- 
ture-reader. “The little cuss has got grit in 
him,” the latter explained, rearing his bulky, 
red-shirted form between the crowd and the 
object of its anger. “His ways ain’t our ways, 
and we’re all welcome to our opinions, and 
to sling them around from barrels or other- 
wise, if so minded. What I says, and Bill 
says, is, that when it comes to slingin’ boots 
instead o’ words it’s too steep by half; an’ 
if this man’s wronged we’ll chip in an’ see 
him righted.” This oratorical effort had the 
effect of checking the more active signs of 
disapproval, and the party of disorder at- 
tempted to settle down once more to their 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH I45 

carouse, and to ignore the shower of Scrip- 
ture which was poured upon them. The at- 
tempt was hopeless. The drunken portion 
fell asleep under the drowsy refrain, and the 
others, with many a sullen glance at the im- 
perturbable reader, slouched off to their huts, 
leaving him still perched upon the barrel. 
Finding himself alone with the more orderly 
of the spectators, the little man rose, closed 
his book, after methodically marking with a 
lead pencil the exact spot at which he stopped, 
and descended from his perch. “To-mor- 
row night, boys,” he remarked in his quiet 
voice, “the reading will commence at the 9th 
verse of the 15th chapter of the Apocalypse,” 
with which piece of information, disregard- 
ing our congratulations, he walked away with 
the air of a man who has performed an ob- 
vious duty. 

We found that his parting words were no 
empty threat. Hardly had the crowd begun 
to assemble next night before he appeared 
once more upon the barrel and began to read 
with the same monotonous vigor, tripping 


I46 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

over words, muddling up sentences, but stul 
boring along through chapter after chapter. 
Laughter, threats, chaff — every weapon short 
of actual violence — was used to deter him, 
but all with the same want of success. Soon 
it was found that there was a method in his 
proceedings. When silence reigned, or when 
the conversation was of an innocent nature, 
the reading ceased. A single word of blas- 
phemy, however, set it going again, and it 
would ramble on for a quarter of an hour or 
so, when it stopped, only to be renewed upon 
similar provocation The reading was pretty 
continuous during that second night, for the 
language of the opposition was still consider- 
ably free. At least it was an improvement 
upon the night before. 

For more than a month Elias JB. Hopkins 
carried on this campaign. There he would 
sit, night after night, with the open book 
upon his knee, and at the slightest provoca- 
tion off he would go, like a musical box when 
the spring is touched. The monotonous drawl 
became unendurable, but it could only be 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN ’S GULCH I47 

avoided by conforming to the parson’s code. 
A chronic swearer came to be looked upon 
with disfavor by the community, since the 
punishment of his transgressions fell upon all. 
At the end of a fortnight the readei was 
silent more than half the time, and at the end 
of a month his position was a sinecure. 

Never was a moral revolution brought about 
more rapidly and more completely. Our 
parson carried his principle into private life. 
I have seen him, on hearing an unguarded 
word from some worker in the gulches, rush 
across, Bible in hand, and perching himself 
upon the heap of red clay which surmounted 
the offender’s claim, drawl through the gen- 
ealogical tree at the commencement of the 
New Testament in a most earnest and impres- 
sive manner, as though it were especially ap- 
propriate to the occasion. In time an oath 
became a rare thing amongst us. Drunken- 
ness was on the wane, too. Casual travelers 
passing through the Gulch used to marvel at 
our state of grace, and rumors of it went as 
far as Ballarat, and excited much comment 
herein. 


I48 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

There were points about our evangelist 
which made him especially fitted for the work 
which he had undertaken. A man entirely 
without redeeming vices would have had no 
Common basis on which to work, and no 
means of gaining the sympathy of his flock. 
As we came to know Elias B. Hopkins bet- 
ter, we discovered that in spite of his piety 
there was a leaven of old Adam in him, and 
that he had certainly known unregenerate 
days. He was no teetotaler. On the con- 
trary, he could choose his liquid with dis- 
crimination, and lower it in an able manner. 
He played a masterly hand at poker, and 
there were few who could touch him at “cut- 
throat euchre.” He and the two ex-ruffians, 
Phillips and Maule, used to play for hours in 
perfect harmony, except when the fall of the 
cards elicited an oath from one of his com- 
panions. At the first of these offenses the 
parson would put on a pained smile and gaze 
reproachfully at the culprit. At the second he 
would reach for his Bible, and the game was 
over for the evening. He showed us he was 


THK PARSON OF JACKMAN ’s GULCH 1 49 

a good revolver hot, too, for when we were 
practicing at an empty brandy bottle outside 
Adams’ bar, he took up a friend’s pistol and 
hit it plumb in the center at twenty-four 
paces. There were few things he took up 
that he could not make a show at apparently, 
except gold-digging, and at that he was the 
veriest duffer alive. It was pitiful to see the 
little canvas bag, with his name printed across 
it, lying flaccid and empty upon the shelf at 
Woburn’s store, while all the other bags were 
increasing daily, and some had assumed quite 
a portly rotundity of form, for the weeks 
were slipping by, and it was almost time for 
the gold-train to start off for Ballarat. We 
reckoned'that the amount which we stored at 
the time represented the greatest sum which 
had ever been taken by a single convoy out 
of Jackman’s Gulch. 

Although Elias B. Hopkins appeared to 
derive a certain quiet satisfaction from the 
wonderful change which he had effected 
in the camp, his joy was not yet rounded and 
complete. There was one thing for which he 


150 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

still yearned. He opened his heart to us 
about it one evening. 

“We’d have a blessing on the camp, boys,” 
he said, “if we only had a service o’ some 
sort on the Lord’s day. It’s a temptin’ o’ 
Providence to go on in this way without takin’ 
any notice of it, except that maybe there’s 
more whisky drunk and more card-playin’ 
than on any other day.” 

“We hain’t got no parson,” objected one 
of the crowd. 

“Ye fool!” growled another, “hain’t we 
got a man as is worth any three parsons, and 
can splash texts around like clay out o’ a 
cradle? What more d’ye want?” 

“We hain’t got no church!” urged the 
same dissentient. 

“Have it in the open air,” one suggested. 

“Or in Woburn’s store,” said another. 

“Or in Adams’ saloon.” 

The last proposal was received with a buzz 
of approval, which showed that it was con- 
sidered the most appropriate locality. 

Adams* saloon was a substantial wooden 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH I^I 

building in the rear of the bar, which was 
used partly for storing liquor and partly for a 
gambling saloon. It was strongly buil* of 
rough-hewn logs, the proprietor rightly judg- 
ing, in tnc unregenerate days of Jackman’s 
Gulch, that hogsheads of brandy and rum 
were commodities which had best be secured 
under lock and key. A strong door opened 
into each end of the saloon, and the interior 
was spacious enough, when the table and lum- 
ber were cleared away, to accommodate the 
whole population. The spirit barrels were 
heaped together at one end by their owner,, 
so as to make a very fair imitation of a pul- 
pit. 

At first the Gulch took but a mild interest 
in the proceedings, but when it became known 
that Elias B. Hopkins intended, after read- 
ing the service, to address the audience, the 
settlement began to warm up to the occasion. 
A real sermon was a novelty to all of them, 
and one coming from their own parson was 
additionally so. Rumor announced that it 
would be interspersed with local hits, and 


152 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

that the moral would be pointed by pungent 
personalities. Men began t;o fear that they 
would be unable to gain seats, and many ap- 
plications were made to the brothers Adams. 
It was only when conclusively shown that 
the saloon could contain them all with a mar- 
gin, that the camp settled down into calm ex- 
pectancy. 

It was as well that the building was of such 
a size, for the assembly upon the Sunday morn- 
ing was the largest which had ever occurred 
in the annals of Jackman’s Gulch. At first 
it was thought that the whole population was 
present, but a little reflection showed that 
this was not so. Maule and Phillips had 
gone on a prospecting journey among the 
hills, and had not returned as yet; and Wo- 
burn, the gold-keeper, was unable to leave 
his store. Having a very large quantity of 
the precious metal under his charge, he stuck 
to his post, feeling that the responsibility 
was too great to trifle with. With these three 
exceptions the whole of the Gulch, with clean 
red shirts, and such other additions to their 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 1 53 

toilet as the occasion demanded, sauntered in 
a straggling line along the clayey pathway 
which led up to the saloon. 

The interior of the building had been pro- 
vided with rough benches; and the parson, 
with his quiet, good-humored smile, was 
standing at the door to welcome them. “ Good 
morning, boys,” he cried, cheerily, as each 
group came lounging up. “Pass in! pass in. 
You’ll find this is as good a morning’s work 
as any you’ve done. Leave your pistols in 
this barrel outside the door as you pass; you 
can pick them out as you come out again ; 
but it isn’t the thing to carry weapons into 
the house of peace.” His request was good- 
humoredly complied with, and before the last 
of the congregation filed in there was a strange 
assortment of knives and firearms in this de- 
pository. When all had assembled, the doors 
were shut and the service began — the first and 
the last which was ever performed at Jack* 
man’s Gulch. 

The weather was sultry and the room close, 
yet the miners listened with exemplary 


154 THE parson of Jackman’s gulch 

patience. There was a sense of novelty in 
the situation which had its attractions. To 
some it was entirely new, others were wafted 
back by it to another land and other days. 
Beyond a disposition which was exhibited by 
the uninitiated to applaud at the end of cer- 
tain prayers, by way of showing that they 
sympathized with the sentiments expressed, 
no audience could have behaved better. There 
was a murmur of interest, however, when 
Elias B. Hopkins, looking down on the con- 
gregation from his rostrum of casks, began 
his address. 

He had attired himself with care in honor 
of the occasion. He wore a velveteen tunic, 
girt round the waist with a sash of china silk, 
a pair of moleskin grousers, and held his cab- 
bage-tree hat in his left hand. He began 
speaking in a low tone, and it was noticed 
at the time that he frequently glanced through 
the small aperture which served for a window, 
which was placed above the heads of those 
who sat beneath him. 

“I’ve put you straight now,” he said in the 


7 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 1 55 

course of his address; “ I’ve got you in the 
right rut, if you will but stick in it.” Here 
he looked very hard out of the window for 
some seconds. u You’ve learned soberness 
and industry, and with those things you can 
always make up any loss you may sustain. 
I guess there isn’t one of ye that won’t re- 
member my visit to this camp.” He paused 
for a moment, and three revolver shots rang 
out upon the quiet summer air. “Keep your 
seats, damn ye!” roared our preacher, as 
his audience rose in excitement. “If a man 
of ye moves, down he goes! The door’s 
locked on the outside, so ye can’t get out any- 
how. Your seats, ye canting, chuckle-headed 
fools! Down with ye, ye dogs, or I’ll fire 
among ye!” 

Astonishment and fear brought us back into 
our seats, and we sat staring blankly at our 
pastor and each other. Elias B. Hopkins, 
whose whole face and even figure appeared 
to have undergone an extraordinary altera- 
tion, looked fiercely down on us from his 
commanding position with a contemptuous 
smile on his stern face. 


156 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

“I have your lives in my hands,” he re- 
marked ; and we noticed a,s he spoke that he 
held a heavy revolver in his hand, and that 
the butt of another one protruded from his 
sash. “I am armed and you are not. If one 
of you moves or speaks, he is a dead man. 
If not, I shall not harm you. You must wait 
here for an hour. Why, you fools ” (this 
with a hiss of contempt which rang in our 
ears for many a long day), “do you know 
who it is that has stuck you up? Do you 
know who it is that has been playing it upon 
you for months as a parson and a saint? 
Conky Jim, the bushranger, ye apes! And 
Phillips and Maule were my two right-hand 
men. They’re off into the hills with your 
gold — Ha, would ye?” This to some restive 
member of the audience, who quieted down 
instantly before the fierce eye and the ready 
weapon of the bushranger. “In an hour 
they will be clear of any pursuit, and I ad- 
vise you to make the best of it 5 and not to 
follow, or you may lose more than your 
n<mey. My horse is tethered outside this 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH I57 

door behind me. When the time is up I 
shall pass through it, lock it on the outside, 
and be off. Then you may break your way 
out as best you can. I have no more to say 
to you, except that ye are the most cursed set 
of asses that ever trod in boot leather.’’ 

We had time to endorse mentally this 
outspoken opinion during the long sixty min- 
utes which followed; we were powerless 
before the resolute desperado. It is true that 
if we made a simultaneous rush we might 
bear him down at the cost of eight or ten of 
our number. But how could such a rush be 
organized without speaking, and who would 
attempt it without a previous agreement that 
he would be supported? There was nothing 
for it but submission. It seemed three hours 
at the least before the ranger snapped up 
his watch, stepped down from the barrel, 
walked backwards, still covering us with his 
weapon, to the door behind him, and then 
passed rapidly through it. We heard the 
creaking of the rusty lock, and the clatter 
of his horse’s hoofs as he galloped away. 


Z58 THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 

It has been remarked that an oath had for 
the last few weeks been a rare thing in the 
camp. We made up for our temporary ab- 
stention during the next half hour. Never 
was heard such symmetrical and heartfelt 
blasphemy. When at last we succeeded in 
getting the door off its hinges all sight of both 
rangers and treasure had disappeared, nor 
have we ever caught sight of either the one 
or the other since. Poor Woburn, true to 
his trust, lay shot through the head across 
the threshold of his empty* store. The vil- 
lains Maule and Phillips had descended upon 
the camp the instant that we had been enticed 
into the trap, murdered the keeper, loaded 
up a small cart with the booty, and got safe 
away to some wild fastness among the moun- 
tains, where they were joined by their wily 
leader. 

Jackman’s Gulch recovered from this blow 
and is now a flourishing township. Social 
reformers are not in request there, however, 
and morality is at a discount. It is said that 
an inquest has been held lately upon an un- 


THE PARSON OF JACKMAN’S GULCH 1 59 

offending stranger who chanced to remark 
that in so large a place it would be advisable 
to have some form of Sunday service. The 
memory of their one and only pastor is still 
green among the inhabitants, and will be for 
many a long year to come. 



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IU T1a$MiflM Detectfn Series 

/he largest, best and cheapest books of this kind published. Average 
nearly 250 pages, printed on good paper, from large, new type plates, with a 
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Price, 25 cts. per vol.j 3 for 50 cts., o- any 7 for $ J.00, postpaid. 


Adventures Among the Indians. 
Arkansas Ranger. Murray. 

Avenger ox the Spanish Main. ‘Ned Buntline. 
Bessie Baine. M. Quad. 

Blinky Morgan. Hawkshawthe Detective. 
Blue Veil. F. DuBoisgobey. 

Boy Hunters. Capt. Mayne Reid. 
Bravo’s Secret. S. Cobb, Jr. 
Carmen— A Tale of ('rime and Brig* 
andage Among the Gypsies in Spain. 
Captain Belt. F. C. Barrington. 
Case of Identity. A. Conan Doyle. 
Chinese Juggler. S. Cobb, Jr. 
Colomba; or, Among the Corsican Bandits. 
Convict No. 72. 

Count’s Millions. F. DuBoisgobey. 
Dalton Brothers. 

Dancing Star. Capt. Ingraham. 
Danver’s Jewels. Cholmondeley. 
Detective’s Crime. F. DuBoisgobey. 
Detective’s Eye. F. DuBoisgobey. 
Escaped from Sing Sing. Hawkshaw the Detective. 
Fast Mail. Thornton. 

Fatal Chair; or, How Paul Pinkham, the 
Philadelphia Detective, Solved a Great Mystery. 
Hawksha?/. 

Fatal Legacy. F. DuBoisgobey. 
Ferdinand’s Choice. F. DuBoisgobey. 
Fight For a Fortune. F. DuBoisgobey. 
File 113. Emile Gaboriau. 

Fortunes of a Soldier. Murray. 
Freak of Fate; or, Lawyer Manton of Chicago. 
Great Mine Mystery, The. 

Great Jewel Mystery. F. DuBoisgobey. 
Gunmaker of Moscow. Sylvanus 
Cobb, Jr. 

His Great Revenge. F. DuBoisgobey. 
Hunting in Great West. Shields. 
Ivan the Serf. Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. 
Jack the Ripper; or, London’s Great- 
est Mystery. Oliver. 

Jailor’s Pretty Wife. F. DuBoisgobey. 
James Boys. Buel. 

Jim Cummings. Francis. 

King of Gold. Nevada Ned. 

Last Adventures of Lecoq, the Detective. Gaboriau. 
Lecoq, the Detective. Gaboriau. 
Lerouge Case. Gaboriau. 

Lombard Street Mystery, A. Robinkon. 
Marian’s Brigade. Maj. Robinson. 
Marl Laroon. Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. 
Matapan Affair. F. DuBoisgobey. 
Millionaire’s Fate. DuBoisgobey. 
Missing Rubies. DuBoisgobey. 

My First Crime. Gustave Mace. 


Mystery of a Hansom Cab. Hume. 
Mystery of Orcival. Gaboriau. 
Neverfail. Maj. Robinson. 

Old Age of Lecoq, the Detective. Gaboriau. 

Old Stumpy; or, Indian Tales of the 
Wild West. Calkins. 

Orlando Chester. S. Cobb, Jr. 
Outlaw, The. Lieut. Murray. 

Paying the Price; or. The End of the 
Wickedest Man in the World. Trainer. 
Perils of Lecoq the Detecti ve. Gaboriau. 
Perils of a Pioneer. Robinson. 
Phantom Legacy. DuBoisgobey. 
Queen of the Sea. Buntline. 

Red Band. DuBoisgobey. 

Red Camelia. DuBoisgobey 
Red Lottery Ticket. DuBoisgobey. 
Red Revenger. Ned Buntline. 
Revenge is Sweet. DuBoisgobey. 
Rival Detective. Postgate. 

Ruined Abbey. Maj. Robinson. 

Run to Earth; or, the Story of Two Crimes. Grayson. 
Royal Greens. Maj. Robinson. 

Royal Yacht. Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. 
Scandal in Bohemia. Conan Doyle. 
Scarlet Mystery. DuBoisgobey. 

Sea Lion. Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. 

Search for Ancestors. DuBoisgobey. 
Secrets of the Coast. S. Cobb, Jr. 
Secret Service Ship. Averill. 
Shadowed to Europe. Jas. Mooney. 
Sign of the Four. Conan Doyle. 
Singular Escape; or, Kit Carson 
Among the Indians. Ellis. 
Sorceress of the Cannibal Islands. 
Steel Necklace. DuBoisgobey. 

Stolen Letter. Morris. 

Storm Children. S. Cobb, Jr. 

Story of a Dark Crime ; or, Shadowed 
from Europe. Hawkins. 

Study in Scarlet. Conan Doyle. 
Swamps of Death. Hawkshaw. 
Taken from the Enemy. NewboH 
Texan Rangers. Robinson. 

Thieving Fingers. DuBojsgobey. 
Tracked by a Woman. Goldey. 

Two Women in Black. Mooney. 
Uncle Sam’s Bad Boys. Adsit. 
Washo Pete. Calkins 
Wayward Girl’s Fate. Hawkshaw. 
Whose Hand ; or, The Mystery of No 
Man’s Heath. Wills. 

Wild Life in the West. Calkins. 
Witch of the Wave. Cheever. 
Younger Brothers. Buel. 


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CH I C AGO 


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